


Dissonance

by masulevin



Series: Written in the Stars [1]
Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Aliens using idioms, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Scott Ryder/Cora Harper - Freeform, Canon-Typical Violence, Custom Female Ryder | Sara, Dysfunctional Family, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Intimacy, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to Depression, Reyes Vidal/Zia Cordier, Slow Burn, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-02-17 16:03:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 77,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13080393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masulevin/pseuds/masulevin
Summary: Avery Ryder didn't want to be on the Pathfinder team, but she didn't want to stay behind in the Milky Way either. As a compromise, she joined the Initiative with plans to work in Colonial Affairs -- but those plans come crashing down after she wakes from stasis too early, joins the rebellion, and is banished with the rest of the exiles.On Kadara, she makes do with what she has. She works for Sloane Kelly to make ends meet until she just can't stand to see Sloane taking advantage of the exiles for one more minute. Once again, her plans come crashing down, and she finds salvation with the Collective -- and a certain smuggler who always seems to be around every corner.Starts between Nexus Uprising and the beginning of Andromeda and continues to the end of the game. Updates on Wednesdays.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> All around me are familiar faces  
> Worn out places, worn out faces  
> “Mad World” by Gary Jules

She can’t move. She’s secured, boxed in, held carefully to protect her body as it crossed more than two million light years of space while her mind floated along, unaware. Now, that protective casing suffocates her, the oxygen dangerously low, her lungs burning as she tries to drag in air.

Her hands more free than the rest of her, she scratches at the window over her face. Her fingernails break as she tries to pry her way out, to push it free. She opens her mouth to scream, but no sound emerges as she chokes on acrid smoke.

She’s the only one. She’s the only one awake. She’s the only one who’s trapped here, in her stasis pod, nowhere near home. She’s going to die, alone.

She screams again.

She wakes up screaming, sitting straight up in her bed and flailing around until she sees the soft light still glowing across the room, always on to remind her when she wakes like this. She claws at her throat and chest with nails no longer bloody, and rakes in deep lungfuls of clean air until she begins to cough.

A warm hand presses to her back, and she leaps away, bare feet hitting the tiled floor of her room. She spins around to see who’s there and leans over to rest her hands on her knees when she recognizes the asari looking blearily at her in the dim light.

“Are you--” the asari starts, but she cuts her off.

“Out.” She scoops a discarded shirt from the floor and pulls it over her head, pulling it down until it covers her body. The asari is glaring, but she obeys, quickly pulling her clothes on and stalking from the room with her shoes still in her hands.

Avery follows her after a moment, locking the door behind her, and then returns on shaking legs to her bed. She collapses onto sheets that smell of perfume and sex, and she groans. More laundry, more of her limited water ration wasted.

She rolls onto her back instead, counting her breaths to calm her still-pounding heart. Her hands are still shaking, and she presses them flat against her eyes until she sees stars in the blackness.

The tears come next, though she tries to stop them. They always do after that dream launches her into wakefulness the same way the scourge launched her out of stasis. She hadn’t cried then--there hadn’t been time. The Nexus was on fire, the air was slowly killing them, and she spent her time trying to pry open the pods of those who hadn’t been able to find their emergency escape.

People who had died just as she had in her dream.

The sudden pinch of her gut is all the warning she needs before she jumps back to her feet and runs into the tiny bathroom next to her room. She empties the contents of her stomach--mostly bile now, burning the back of her throat--and then rests her forehead against the wall by the toilet, waiting to see if she’ll be sick again.

She shudders and wipes the cold sweat from her face before standing to clean herself. She flushes the toilet and wets a small towel to wipe her face and neck without wasting any more water than necessary. She wrinkles her nose--despite the filters installed, it always smells like sulfur. It doesn’t taste much better.

The clock on her omnitool tells her it’s just 0430--still three hours before she needs to get up for the day, but her brain is too alert for more sleeping. With a low groan, she grabs one of the datapads she’s collected since waking up in Andromeda, and settles against her pillows to find something to read.

Her eyes light on familiar words, and she lets them comfort her as her heart finally begins to slow.

_ In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit… _

\---

Even the gentle beeping of her alarm makes her flinch and adrenaline surge through her system as she wakes from yet another dream of her stasis pod. The alarms of the Nexus rattle in her mind as she quickly washes her hair, grimacing as the red dye fades even further, and continues to make her hands shake as she makes a mug of weak coffee.

Her tiny bag of coffee beans is almost empty, now, and the cost to replace it is enormous. She only has a few more cups before she has to give up the habit entirely, but she can’t bare to think of that at all right now. She tries to ignore it and just enjoy the taste as it slides down her throat and settles, leaden, in her stomach.

More protection fees are due today. Not hers, thankfully--she has another two weeks to save up for her next payment, but she’ll have to accept the last credits of dozens of exiles. They come to her, sometimes crying, sometimes with dead eyes, and she has to pretend like she agrees with Sloane. She has to if she wants to stay inside Kadara Port and the slums, away from the lawless expanse of Badlands. 

But every single day she walks into Sloane’s headquarters feels like it should be the last. Every step makes her stomach ache and her throat burn. Each command from Sloane’s lips makes her fight to keep her lips from curling and her hands from clenching into fists, and every payment she accepts or tax she takes makes her wish she’d never joined the rebellion in the first place.

She could still be on the Nexus--maybe back in stasis, sure--but she would be  _ safe  _ and she wouldn't have to look into her mirror every morning knowing what she was doing to survive was dragging others closer to their breaking point.

There’s already a queue forming when she pushes into Sloane’s headquarters near the market, and she joins up with the turian who usually guards her on collection days.

His mandibles flare in a smile when their eyes meet, a small bright spot in her day. Avery smiles back and accepts the datapad he's holding out to her, the dread returning to her gut when she looks at it to see the list of names.

This isn’t what she joined the Initiative for.

More importantly, this isn’t what she joined the  _ rebellion  _ for. Taking money from the men and women she fought beside to protest the way Tann and Addison and, honestly, even Sloane had treated them over the months that the Nexus slowly broke down.

But… still. She has water rations to buy, a filter to maintain against the deadly sulfur that makes all of Kadara port stink constantly, food stuffs to purchase in the market. Her own protection fees to pay. She needs this job, and unless she wants to pick up a gun again and try working as a merc…

No. She can’t do that either. Even the thought makes her morning coffee turn sour in her stomach and she has to immediately try to ignore the vision of her beating someone who can’t pay their fees. Taking the money from them is bad enough.

“You okay?” The turian’s voice, gentle as he checks on her, soothes her and pulls her back to reality. She blinks up at him for a moment, then shakes herself enough to nod.

“Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Cato. Ready to get started?” She taps at the datapad to avoid his gaze, though she still hears him hestiate. She sneaks a peek up at him when he doesn’t respond right away--he’s gazing at the door separating them from the rest of the Port, a strange expression on his face. She doesn’t push him. She thinks she understands.

After another moment, he makes a rumbling noise that could be him clearing his throat or a sigh. “Let’s get it over with.”

Avery nods and sits behind the desk, keying her login into the terminal, and Cato moves to open the door. A line quickly forms and he comes to stand behind Avery, his Avenger clutched in his talons--as much to protect her as to remind her, unequivocally, who is in charge here.

Collecting protection fees isn’t physically difficult, not for someone in Avery’s position. She’s nothing more than a glorified secretary, really, all of her training useless when she’s simply entering  _ yes  _ or  _ no _ in next to an endless list of names. Collecting taxes is a little more interesting; at least she gets to do some math there.

Collecting the protection fees is  _ emotionally  _ exhausting. Dead-eyed exiles and beautiful, if sad, angara filtering in and out all day. Many of them giving her all the credits they have to their name, and she just watches the number transferring into Sloane’s account growing higher and higher.

By the end of the day, even Cato is drooping a little. It would be hard for a casual observer to see, but Avery’s been doing this with him for months now. She can tell when he’s starting to have a hard time.

She’s drooping too--her throat is dry and scratchy again, her stomach empty, her eyes burning from staring at the terminal screen for too long. She draws in a breath, holds it for a moment, and then slowly exhales, fighting off the urge to put her head down on her desk and cry or fall asleep.

“Is that everyone?” Cato’s voice makes her jump. It’s closer to her ear than she was expecting--he’s leaning down to peer at the monitor over her shoulder. She bats him away and he stands straight again with a grin.

“Almost. Just a couple more people.” She stares at their names with a sinking sense of dread.  _ Tate Barker. Carter Buonomo. Davis Cook. Lina Harrison.  _ Four people who probably can’t pay their fees. Four people she’ll have to mark as  _ late  _ tomorrow, and  _ wanted  _ in a week.

At least Sloane gives them a week to pull themselves together.

She remembers Carter from last month. She has a husband still in stasis on the Nexus, and a kid too. She was glad they weren’t around for the shitstorm that went down but afraid she’ll never see them again. It seems unlikely. Even if the arks finally show up there’s no way that the exiles will be welcomed back onto the Nexus. Her family will have to leave its relative security to come to Kadara for her.

If Carter doesn’t pay her fees, she’ll be beaten or killed or exiled from the exiles. She’ll have to find her way out in the Badlands. She’ll definitely never see her family then.

Avery waits, bitten-off fingernails tapping on the top of the desk, as the minutes creep by. Cato makes an impatient noise that’s just for her to hear. Trying to hurry her along. She sets her jaw and settles into purposefully ignoring him.

It works in their favor. Luca, one of the turian commanders Sloane seems to favor, walks in just before Avery is ready to give in and call it a day, and she feels Cato stiffen behind her. He must have been physically discontent, because Luca shoots him a scathing look before handing Avery a datapad.

“Sloane’s handing these out,” he informs her. “Fees are going up starting on the first.” She nods at him, accepting the datapad even as her stomach sinks farther than she expected. Hers are due  _ after _ the first. He and Cato exchange nods too before Luca moves on, leaving Avery staring down at the list of new fees, a higher tax percentage, all designed to put more credits in Sloane’s account.

She opens her mouth to wonder aloud what she’s doing with all this money, then snaps her jaw closed. That isn’t the way to stay in the Port. She turns to look up at Cato with tired eyes. “Buy me a drink? I’ll be your wingman!”

Used to this offer, Cato just shakes his head. “I get into enough trouble without your help.” Unspoken:  _ I need to save my credits.  _ Avery just shrugs. 

“See you later, then?” At his nod, she logs out of the console and shuts the terminal down. She’ll be back tomorrow for another day of robbery, and maybe then he’ll go with her.

She mulls everything over as she strolls the market, hands deep in her pockets, pretending not to see the narrowed eyes and curled lips she gets from those few people who actually recognize her as one of Sloane’s flunkies. Even against their obvious disquiet, she doesn’t exactly feel unsafe. 

Any violence against her would be put down by the guards--and they’re the real threats here, the ones with the weapons and the anger and the free reign to do what they want.

She keeps her head down.

She buys some of the supplies she needs that can carry her through the next few days, haggling with the vendors until she’s blue in the face, mindful of the looming payment in her future.

It’s deep in the market that she sees Carter. Avery stands there, a bag of an unidentifiable but delightfully spiced jerky tucked under one arm, and stares with her jaw slack.

Their eyes meet, and Avery sees the exact moment that Carter realizes who she is. Her eyes grow wide and round, jumping from side to side as she considers running, as though Avery would be the one to deliver a beating for a late payment.

Finally, Carter settles on plastering a fake smile on her face and asking if Avery wants any of the weapon mods in her stall, as though Avery has handled a gun since the kett were driven from the port.

Avery steps closer until she can speak low enough for Carter to hear but still not be overheard. “I’m not here to shake you down, but you know a late fee starts tomorrow.”

Carter’s eyes immediately fill with tears. “I can’t.”

“You know you have to.”

Carter shakes her head hard and glances over her shoulder at the other vendors milling around behind her. “I don’t have enough after the tax I have to pay, and business isn’t… that great.” Avery lifts her eyebrows in disbelief. “Not like it has been! Water prices are going up, food prices are going up--there’s a rumor that the fucking protection fees are going up, and I need to keep myself alive.”

Her eyes are pleading, tears barely held at bay. Avery’s heart twists in her chest, and before she has time to think about it--

“How much can you do?”

Stupid question.  _ Stupid, stupid.  _ What is she going to do, cover what Carter can’t? What has Carter done for her that would make Avery even consider--

“Most of it,” Carter hedges, then gives in and supplies an actual figure when Avery just hardens her face and glares.

Avery runs the math through her mind, silently sizing Carter up. She’s close to the amount due before the late fee. It isn’t worth a run in with Sloane’s enforcers over, not if she can make the payment and stay under the radar for another few weeks.

“Send it to me,” Avery cuts in, speaking over the middle of Carter’s explanations. “I’ll input the whole amount tonight so you won’t have the late fee. Do not tell anyone. I can’t have all of Kadara up my ass about helping their fees too.”

The two women stare at each other for a long moment. Avery wills some confidence into the set of her jaw, some threatening glint to her eye that will make Carter understand how serious she is. 

Carter breaks first, lifting her omnitool to make a transfer directly to Avery. Her tool buzzes, and she pulls up the notification to check the amount.

It’s what she was promised. She can make it work.

She looks up at Carter again and nods before turning on her heel and working her way back through the market to Sloane’s headquarters. The guards at the door let her in with barely a grunt of acknowledgement, allowing her to slip into the room with the terminals without a turian hovering over her shoulder.

It’s only a few taps of the keyboard and a few on her omnitool before Carter’s payment is logged in the system. It’s a few more moments and the logs of Sloane’s account are corrected to include Carter’s information rather than Avery’s, a little trick she picked up at some point before coming to Andromeda but hasn’t used before this very moment.

Of course, now the amount she’s been saving for her next payment is too low, and she’s only bought Carter’s protection for another few weeks. 

She hesitates with the terminal still open and glowing bright in her face and bites at her nails. They’re short and already gnawed to the quick, but she nibbles anyway as she considers her options, then hisses as she breaks the skin and her mouth is filled with the metallic tang of blood.

She grimaces and resists the urge to spit on Sloane’s floor. She pulls a bit of the jerky out of the bag on her lap and pops it into her mouth, letting the new flavors banish the old as her gaze lands on the datapad Luca handed her earlier.

It holds the new tax percent from Sloane, the new rules for drawing off the top of all sales within Kadara Port. These payments are delivered weekly, a handful collected by each of the agents Sloane assigned to take care of all transactions under her control. All of the agents… including Avery.

An idea sparks and then grows in her mind just as dread settles heavy in her stomach.

It won’t last long, but… she may have a plan.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Then I see you over there, I can’t seem to break the stare,  
> Maybe because your shirt is my favorite color  
> “In My Dreams” by Ruth B

Layers of encryption and personal codes protect what has become Avery’s most valuable possession: a datapad, hidden in plain sight with the others she’s hoarded since waking up that hold personal writing and favorite books, filled with what information she’s been able to gather on Sloane’s operation.

Admittedly, it isn’t all that much. She’s a passable hacker, but she has to be painstakingly careful to keep anyone from noticing what she’s doing. If caught doing just _one_ of the things she’s been doing over the last weeks, she’d be beaten and -- if she survived _that_ experience -- exiled to the Badlands… and now there are people depending on her, even if they don’t exactly know it.

Carter was the first, saved from Sloane’s wrath out of the meager reserves of Avery’s own account. Others followed -- humans, turians, and angara alike who couldn’t make 100% of their protection fees but still paid what they could.

Avery topped off the rest with money skimmed off the top of the taxes she collected and erased what traces she could.

It’s not a perfect system. She’ll be caught, sooner rather than later, and the longer it goes on the worse her punishment will be.

But… for now, just for new, the relieved expressions on the faces of those who’ve been given more time with friends and family in the port are enough of a reward, despite the constant ache in her gut. The risk is worth the smiles she can sometimes see when she picks up supplies.

And she found some good intel while snooping around in Sloane’s files, too, though she doesn’t know what to do with it beyond storing it on that datapad. She can’t exactly hand it off to the Collective agent who’s always trying to recruit people in Kralla’s without Sloane finding out about it, and he’s the only member of the Collective she knows.

She needs a better plan. Until then… head down, mouth shut, eyes open.

And when the pressure gets too much… go to Tartarus.

The club is always good for a distraction. Sometimes she can charm Kian into giving her a free shot near the beginning of the evening, something he wants to test because it was brewed on Kadara that never fails to make her cough and her eyes water but that does the job well enough.

She always pays for her next drink if an interested party doesn't offer in time. Kian’s running a business, after all, not a charity. And he’s never acted interested in taking her home at the end of the night, so she doesn't want to take advantage.

Someone else, maybe. Not her _favorite_ bartender.

Tonight, Kian gives her a flat look when she grins at him and leans against the slightly sticky counter to speak through the bars at him.

“Avery,” he greets, voice disinterested but eyes sparking with recognition under the facade. “Haven't seen you in a bit.”

“Oh, you know,” she says, lifting one hand to wave it dismissively through the air. “I keep myself busy, but I didn't want you to get lonely without me.”

He barks out a laugh and grabs a small glass and a bottle of liquor she doesn't recognize. “Thank you for putting me out of my misery, love.”

She winks as he pushes the shot under the bars to her, then tosses it back with her usual indelicate spluttering as it burns the inside of her mouth.

“ _Yikes_ , Kian.”

He laughs again. “One of these days I’ll find an Angaran liquor you like.”

She wipes at her lips with the back of her hand. The liquid burns her dry lips too where it touches the cracked skin, and she hisses before finally pulling herself together to answer Kian.

“That seems unlikely at this point, but I appreciate the offer.” She slides the glass back to him and he winks as he accepts it.

“You never know!” he says, then glances down the bar to where other _paying_ customers are waiting for service. “Go do me proud,” he adds, and disappears with a little wave over his shoulder.

Summarily dismissed, Avery turns to lean against the bar and surveys the gathered crowd, checking for familiar faces. It takes a few moments but finally -- on the far side of the club behind a group of dancers is Keema, Sloane’s Angaran representative, talking to a human man Avery dimly recognizes from previous nights in Tartarus.

She skirts the edge of the crowd to meet Keema, reaching the woman’s elbow just as the man disappears into the shadows. Avery takes a moment to watch him walk away, eyeing the way his flight suit hugs his ass, before looking up at Keema with a half smile.

“Hi, Keema,” she greets. “Who’s your friend?”

Keema blinks her large blue eyes down at Avery, studying her for a moment as though trying to judge the intent behind the human’s words, then puts her hand on her hip and smiles back. “Oh, that’s Reyes,” she says. “You would know him if you accepted my invitations to Tartarus more often.”

Avery lets her jaw drop open and presses her hand to her chest in mock offense. “I am doing the best I can,” she protests, then drops the pretense with a shake of her head. “Maybe next time you should bribe me with that guy instead. Dance with me?”

She puts her hand on Keema’s in an attempt to coax her into the area reserved for dancing. More people fill the area as the night grows later, the space becoming more intimate as people begin to pair off or forget that they're still in public.

Keema allows the contact but doesn't move, scanning the dancers instead. She looks back at Avery with her eyes slightly narrowed in concern. “I do not wish to mate with you.”

Avery drops Keema’s hand with a startled laugh, covering her eyes with her fingers until she can find her control again. “That’s not… that's fine, Keema. We don't have to dance _or_ mate if you don't want.”

Keema’s posture relaxes at Avery’s easy acceptance but still doesn't take the invitation. Instead, she offers her own. Leaning down a little so she can be heard more easily over the pounding beat of the club, she says, “Join me for a drink instead.”

She waits the split second it takes for Avery to nod before turning and leading her back through the crowd to the bar. She pays, despite Avery's guilt-filled protests, and then takes Avery upstairs away from the dancers.

They lean against the railing of the upper floor, watching the gyrating bodies below with mild interest. Avery checks each face for familiarity -- whether from working together on the Nexus or in the Port, from fighting the kett, or from previous trips to Tartarus to find a night’s pleasure -- and notes each time she sees one.

_They're still alive. They're still on Kadara. They haven't been outcast by Sloane._

Keema’s voice startles her enough to make her jump and slosh some of Kian’s mixed drink over the side of her cup. It drips down to the floor below and lands on the shoulder of a dancing turian, but he doesn't seem to notice.

“How are things going in collections, Avery?”

Avery regains control of her cup and shoots a sideways look at her companion. The little thrill of terror from the question _does she know_ settles deep in her belly, making her want to gag.

She pulls herself back together enough to spit out, “Fine, fine. The same as it always is.” She looks down at the dancers, then back up at Keema, then across to the bar where she can see Keema’s friend from before talking to Kian. She studies Reyes’ profile in the low light, admiring the straight line of his nose and the careful coif of his hair to distract herself. She takes a tiny sip of her drink against the nausea. It doesn't help.

Keema makes a little angaran noise, sort of a cross between a hum and a purr that Avery can't quite interpret. Across the bar, a woman with dyed red hair but none of Avery’s obvious roots approaches Reyes with a confident smile stretched across her face. He greets her with a hand on her hip and a lingering kiss. Avery turns back to Keema.

“You're not as good at hiding your feelings as some of your kind,” Keema observes, leaning down to rest her forearms on the railing. Her shoulder, now down at Avery's level, bumps into Avery’s arm. “You always look like you want to cry when you accept payments.”

“When have you ever seen me accepting payments?” Avery demands, gazing down into her cup. She takes a big mouthful and lets it burn on the way down.

“Sometimes I… pass through to make sure everyone is safe.” Keema’s hesitation lets Avery know that isn't the whole truth, but she doesn't push. It doesn't really matter as long as Avery’s mood really is the cause of Keema’s questioning.

Avery finishes off her drink. “It can be hard. They're doing their best and giving me their last credits. It… yeah, it can be hard.” She's hedging too. It’s slowly killing her, pushing her to make reckless choices to undermine Sloane that _will_ get her killed.

“Mmm.” That angaran noise again. As Keema’s shoulder brushes Avery’s arm again, a tingle brushes over her skin and makes her shiver.

It's bioelectricity, she realizes. Keema’s trying -- consciously or not -- to express something that she can't with words. The shock was a surprise but far from unpleasant, and Avery finds herself leaning back in despite herself, enjoying the way the current feels mixed with her own biotics, weak but so carefully hidden away from Sloane.

Her gaze drifts back down to where Reyes is still standing with that woman, his arm around her waist and his hand resting proprietorially on her ass as he talks to Kian. The woman leans over and nuzzles against Reyes’ ear before smoothing a hand over his hair. The easy affection makes Avery's heart clench even as another wave of Keema’s bioelectricity washes over her in a confusing blend of comfort and prickling static, raising the hairs on the back of her neck.

“He could probably help you with that,” Keema says suddenly, interrupting Avery’s spiraling thoughts and withdrawing her bioelectricity. Avery tries to chase it and bumps into Keema’s arm before she manages to right herself, standing with a straight back and squared shoulders the way her dad always wanted her to.

“Who?” Avery echoes, blinking dumbly at Keema. “What?”

Keema’s laughter is low, spilling from her chest in the uninhibited way angara have. “Reyes,” she finally explains. “I see you watching him and Zia. They pay their collection fees, but they aren't strongly tied to Sloane.” _Not the way you are,_ Avery hears as Keema pauses. “Reyes may have an alternative if you're looking for one.”

Avery glances sharply at Keema, then forces her gaze forward again. Reyes is done talking to Kian, and when he turns around he glances up at her. Their eyes lock for a moment and she has the time to realize his are a stunning shade of amber before he nods in polite greeting, lifts his glass in salute, and turns away before she can respond to him _or_ to Keema’s suggestion.

She works for Sloane just like Avery does. Keema has learned, somehow, more than the other angara who populate the port, how to hide her emotions. She typically has a blank expression even when her eyes are sharp, and Avery has no way of knowing what her motivation is here.

Is she testing Avery on Sloane’s behalf? Is she genuinely making an offer for the Collective, the only people, headed by the Charlatan, with _any_ power against Sloane? Or is she making deadly conversation?

It isn't that last option. Avery dismisses it before she can finish considering it.

It's either a trap or a way out. At this point, it barely matters, but that thing in Avery’s chest that clenched when Keema started asking questions has only grown tighter, screaming _danger._

“Turning against Sloane is a one-way ticket to the Badlands,” Avery finally says, “or to having your head on a spike. I'm not… I’m not looking to die.” Her voice falters as she realizes that’s not the entire truth, not with the way she’s playing with Sloane’s finances, not with the real threat of execution when her work is finally discovered.

It would, at least, give her a way out of Kadara entirely.

Keema’s bioelectricity breeches the distance between them, surrounding Avery with an aura of comfort and _trust_ for the briefest of moments before it withdraws.

Maybe… this offer is genuine after all?

“It’s only a suggestion,” Keema says mildly, ignoring the way Avery has to smooth down the hairs on her arms that are standing on end. “Reyes knows everyone on Kadara. He… oh, he has his hands in each pudding?”

Avery’s surprised enough at the botched idiom to laugh, though she tries to hide it when Keema turns her blue gaze on her. “He has his thumb in every pie?”

“Yes,” Keema agrees, then turns her head as someone else catches her attention. She waves at a blue-skinned Angara across the bar, then casually rests her hand on Avery’s shoulder. “I will see you soon. Stay strong.”

Avery watches the sway of Keema’s hips as she walks away to meet her friend, fingering her empty cup long after she should have moved away.

Keema… knows something.

But what?

Avery tries to take another drink just to grunt in annoyance as only a single drop lands on her tongue. She glares down at the bottom of the cup as though it wasn't her own fault before climbing back down the stairs to get her third (and final, she tells herself) drink from the bar.

She pays for this one, generously tipping Kian with a wink, downs it, and lets herself disappear into the crowd of dancers.

Keema’s words follow her even as the thudding bass of the music helps her push the rest of her worries to the back of her mind. Her body finds the rhythm and follows it with the same fluid movements that she always uses. She might not be the strongest dancer, but she’s good enough that after just a few moments alone, hands grab her hips and pull her flush against a warm body.

She glances over her shoulder to confirm her suspicions -- the body belongs to a familiar face, the same asari she’s taken back to her tiny slums apartment a few times over the last months -- and then carries on, now syncing the rhythmic rolls of her hips to Nira’s.

When she looks up again, she sees Reyes and Zia dancing a few feet away, bodies intimately pressed together as they move in tandem. Almost as though he can feel her attention, Reyes’ eyes snap open. His amber gaze flicks over her body, assessing, dismissing, and then he returns his full focus to the woman with him, closing his eyes again and pressing an open-mouthed kiss to the column of her throat as she runs her fingers into his hair.

Zia’s painted lips drop open on what must be a moan, and Avery watches Reyes tug her closer before the asari does the same.

Avery spins and loops her arms around Nira’s neck, and lets the lure of another night with her wash away the other distractions… just for now.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She’ll be a scar now  
> I will still let her bleed  
> All over me  
> “Open Your Eyes” by Andrew Belle

An ark has arrived. Or… some of its survivors have arrived in the Port, telling tales of stasis pods surviving emergency jettisons into space, of crash landings on planets stranger than Kadara. Planets she’s heard the angara talk about as  _ home  _ with strange animals flying through the air and plants that glow as brightly as they are dangerous.

Even Sloane’s lover made his way to Kadara Port. Sloane took one look at the turian and ordered everyone out of her headquarters; Avery scampered away and used the opportunity to head down to the slums. Not much was getting done anyway, not with the news and the people suddenly hopeful again that their families might join them. If the turian ark made it through the scourge and darkspace, surely the human and asari arks can too.

Avery shoulders through a group of people boarding the lift, tucking herself against the back wall and clutching the railing behind her with both hands. She keeps her eyes trained on the sunlight filtering through the grated top, ignoring the excited chatter of those around her, holding her breath whenever the lift rattles or groans.

She doesn’t move from her position against the wall until almost everyone has filtered out, then she dashes out into the relatively cool, sulfuric air of the slums. Her boots squelch in the mud that surrounds some of the puddles in the lowest part of the cave, and she jumps a little to escape the toxic water.

One of the other exiles glances down at her feet in what’s probably pity but looks more like annoyance, and Avery’s face flushes hot. She lets herself drift farther away from the group, tucking her hands into the deep pockets of her too-big Initiative-issued pants. 

The logo was long ago ripped from them, of course, leaving a poorly patched hole in its place. It’s the standard uniform for the exiles: Initiative clothing with all traces of the Initiative removed. Holes, tears, patches, strange plants used for dyes to keep everything from being the same shades of white, blue, and red. 

A lot of people just wear armor, but Avery sold anything protective she had long ago. Everyone wears the same few things over and over until they absolutely have to be washed, then spend a few days grimacing at fabric that reeks of sulfur rather than fabric that reeks of their own sweat.

It's not that different from the Nexus, really. Just more sulfur and less of whatever it was in the air that burned her lungs until sometimes deep breaths make her choke and cough, even nearly a year later.

Up the first set of stairs outside of Tartarus, Avery puts even more space between herself and the crowd by turning left instead of heading through the double doors to enter the club. Following the path to the maze of shipping containers that signal the start of the residential part of the slums takes her right to her goal: the soup kitchen recently installed by the Collective.

The ingredients are questionable but it’s  _ warm  _ and calories are calories. Any pickiness -- and, honestly, there was a lot of pickiness -- that Avery developed growing up on the Citadel and then later living on earth has vanished under the very real threat of starvation. Now she can just close her eyes, imagine a  _ real  _ cheeseburger, and choke down whatever mystery meat she’s actually eating.

There’s a line when she makes it to the little soup kitchen, and she waits patiently behind a human she vaguely recognizes from the Nexus. He’s a little twitchy, keeps rubbing at the crook of his elbow as they wait. Another oblivion user, probably. If that’s the case, he won’t be able to stay in the port or in the slums for long. He won’t be able to pay his fees and feed his habit at the same time.

Worry churns in her gut for this stranger, dread making her go dizzy for just a moment before she forces herself to let a little distance grow between them as the line moves but she doesn’t.

She can’t afford to take on the entire port -- emotionally _ or  _ financially. Some people are just going to have to live their lives without her interference.

The people who were in the line when she got there hover nearby to drink their soup, mostly in silence. Avery joins them, standing nearly behind the shipping container. It’s a little quieter back here -- she can feel the pulsing beat of Tartarus, even in the middle of the afternoon, but she can’t hear its music.

She takes the lid off of the mug and inhales the steam that hits her face. It smells… good, spicy, maybe a gumbo? Something probably too thick to be eating without a spoon, but beggars -- literally in her case -- can’t be choosers.

She does the best she can, taking small mouthfuls to avoid spilling it down her front and holding in the moans when the taste finally hits her tongue. It’s almost  _ too  _ spicy, but it’s the most delicious thing she’s had since waking up in Andromeda, so she closes her eyes to focus on the flavor and the way it’s warming her from the inside out.

The last thing she expects when she opens her eyes in Reyes standing before her, gaze firmly planted on her face, a little crooked smile on his lips. She starts to laugh in surprise, then chokes as she remembers her mouth is still full, and finally covers her mouth and coughs as her cheeks flare red.

Reyes’ expression doesn’t change, though his eyes seem to spark when she starts to laugh again, wiping at her lips to make sure her face is clean after her loss of composure.

“Hi,” she greets, instantly feeling even sillier. She can’t help but sweep her eyes over his form, quickly, taking in his flight suit and still-glowing omnitool. She swallows hard and resists the urge to shift away or lick her lips, trying instead to remember how to act like a normal adult person. “Uhh -- you’re Keema’s friend, right?” Not great, but better.

Reyes blinks slowly, his grin growing from a smirk into a smile. He holds his hand out, and Avery wipes hers off before shaking it as he says, “Yes, but  _ you _ can call me Reyes.”

“Reyes,” she echoes, giving herself a moment to reorient herself because  _ sweet Jesus that voice _ . “I’m Avery. I’m, uh, also Keema’s friend.” Still smiling, she wrinkles her nose at herself. This could be going better.

He squeezes her fingers before letting them go. She clasps her nearly-empty mug with both hands to keep herself from doing anything else weird, and takes a deep breath before forcing her face into a semblance of a normal expression. It’s similar to what she has to do when she’s near Sloane or one of Sloane’s guards, but more openly friendly. The return of control is comforting, helping herself calm the rest of the way.

If Reyes notices her struggle, he politely doesn’t mention it. His own expression doesn’t shift from the pleasant smile he’s wearing as he asks, “What are they serving today?”

“Oh, um,” Avery looks into the mug. “I didn’t ask.” She starts to blush at the admission, then the flush turns darker when she hears Reyes’ deep chuckle. She starts to talk again to push them past his amusement because he has  _ got  _ to quit making that noise. “It’s good though. Whoever makes the stuff is good at it. It’s, uh, something spicy today. I like it.”

Now she’s rambling, face pink, and Reyes is still staring at her with sparkling eyes and a relaxed smile.

She bites the inside of her lip and forces herself to fall silent again. Reyes waits her out like it’s an interrogation tactic, and she falls right into his trap even as she realizes what he’s doing if not why.

“Did you wa-- need something?” She narrows her eyes a bit at him and waits. He’s the one who approached her, after all.

“Oh, no, no,” he says, voice casual. “Keema mentioned you to me, so I thought I should stop to introduce myself when I saw you standing here.” He glances at her mug, and his omnitool winks out as it realizes it’s no longer needed. 

Silence stretches between them again as Avery wonders what, exactly, Keema told him. Her words from their evening in Tartarus ring in Avery’s head as she hesitates:  _ He’s not strongly tied to Sloane… he may have an alternative. _

The datapad with Sloane’s information is still in Avery’s apartment, hidden in plain sight among her others. She could give it to Reyes now, pack her things and go into the Badlands on a full stomach to meet whatever future waits for her on the other side of the fence.

Aloud, she says, “Oh, uh, well. It’s nice to meet you.”  _ Stupid,  _ this is her chance to talk to Reyes in a way that won’t look suspicious to any of Sloane’s flunkies, and she’s just-- “I guess I’ll see you around, Reyes.”

He tilts his head up at her dismissal, eyes losing some of their previous amusement without the rest of his face changing expression. It’s disconcerting, Avery thinks, to watch his demeanor change so completely when he’s barely done anything, but it makes her straighten her spine and arch an eyebrow right back at him, meeting a challenge that she doesn’t understand.

“You’re more likely to see Keema,” he says, “but I’ll keep an eye out.” He turns without another word, pulling his omnitool back up as he heads wherever he was going when he found her -- away from Tartarus, but not deeper into the residential area. 

She watches him walk until he disappears around the corner, then she physically shakes herself and finishes her soup in just a few gulps.

She returns the mug with a quiet thanks, puts her hands back in her pockets, and winds her way through the increasingly narrowing alleys to her little apartment, tucked between dozens of others that are nearly identical.

It’s time to get some sleep.

\---

Something is very wrong. It’s like the entirety of Sloane’s headquarters is holding its breath, afraid of igniting the powder keg that is Sloane’s wrath. It makes Avery’s stomach clench painfully and, behind her desk, she can hear the occasional clicking of Cato’s mandibles in his own brand of expelling nervous energy.

This feels like Kaetus’ fault, somehow. Everything was fine before the turian ark flew into Andromeda and spat out turians to crash land across the cluster. Now he’s here, in the Port, riling up Sloane and causing more problems for everyone.

The whole room reacts when Kaetus walks into the collections area. Citizens waiting to pay catch their breath and avoid looking at him, guards stand up straighter and square their shoulders, and those accepting payments suddenly look like they’ve bitten down on something sour.

Kaetus, for his part, is completely ignoring the way his presence is making everyone pucker. He’s here to do his job, just like the rest of them -- and maybe it isn’t really his fault that he walked right onto the planet and became Sloane’s second in command. Maybe he doesn’t want this either, this disruption of their everyday lives, and he’s just along for the ride like everyone else.

If he doesn’t like it, Avery can’t tell. She keeps an eye on him as much as she can as he walks around the room with two of Sloane’s other guards, more turians from the Nexus, and accepts the next payment from someone in her queue. Kaetus stands behind her as she marks the payment as complete, logs the transfer of funds into Sloane’s account, and sends it off.

Then, he moves to stand behind the next person, and ignores the way Avery glances up at him with a frown.

He does this to all of the collections agents, then stands with his two companions at the back of the room, discussing something in voices too low for her to pick up. Behind her, Cato shifts again, his mandibles clacking with clear discomfort -- whether irritation or anxiety, Avery can’t be sure without asking, and she’s afraid to speak while Kaetus is still in the room.

She has time to process a few more payments before Kaetus bangs his fist into the metal wall, making the sound reverberate around the room. Everyone flinches away from the noise, but all whispered conversations cease, just as he wanted.

When all eyes are on him, he levels them with a glare. “Everyone get out.” A pause, then, as no one breathes. When his order isn’t obeyed, he tries again: “Leave!”

The crowd scatters. The residents of Kadara Port, suddenly completely unconcerned with paying their protection fees, turn as one to squeeze through the doors on either side of the room. The workers move more slowly, gathering coffee cups and bags before slipping away.

Avery hangs back as Cato turns in his rifle, waiting for him to step out into the humidity of the market. He blinks slowly when he sees her leaning against one of the columns that holds up Sloane’s manufactured palace, but moves to join her. They fall into easy step, strolling slowly away from the guards before she asks, “Could you hear them in there? What’s going on?”

“Someone’s stealing,” he says, voice pitched low, subvocals a pleasant rumble in an otherwise unpleasant sentence. “They’re going to look at all the terminals to see if they can track them down.”

_ Oh. _

The anticipated rush of panic doesn’t come, doesn’t make Avery go weak at the knees or her stomach lurch or her head spin. Instead, something settles in her chest and she just nods. This is it. She’s been waiting for them to figure it out, and she only has two choices.

Wait for them to figure out she’s the thief or leave before they track her down.

“Okay, Cato,” she sighs, tearing her eyes away from the bustling market to look up at her friend. She stands on her tiptoes and reaches for the cowl of his armor, pulling him down at the waist until his face is close enough to hers that she can press a kiss to his cheek. His mandibles pull together in what looks like turian embarrassment, and she pats his other cheek once before releasing him. “I’ll… see you around.”

“Err--” he stands up straight, mandibles still flexing. “Is everything alright, Avery?”

_ No.  _ “Yeah, yeah. Bye, Cato.” She punches him in the arm in farewell, knuckles bouncing unharmed off of his armor, and then she pushes past him toward the lift. She tucks her hands in her pockets and keeps her head down as she walks, watching the crowd from under lowered brows. No one seems to be following her; no one seems to be watching her.

With any luck, she’ll make it to her apartment and out into the Badlands before they uncover her breadcrumbs in the system. She can figure out what to do once she’s out there -- surely there’s a Collective base somewhere out there she can join if she finds it fast enough. Or… maybe now is the time to find Reyes?

The lift is empty when she steps into it, clunking and grinding on her way down to the slums. She leans against the wall and holds the railing, staring up at the sky until the machine rumbles to a stop and she can see the sky again, from far across the stretch of the slums into the Badlands.

She walks, quickly and with her head down, toward her apartment. At the  _ very  _ least, she needs to get the datapad with Sloane’s information on it, but really she needs everything she can fit into the duffle bag she brought with her off of the Nexus. Food first, then clothes, then datapads…

She’s still trying to figure out how much she can reasonably carry when she hits her level of the slums, the scaffolding rattling under her feet. Movement behind her makes the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, and she lifts her head in time to see a human man step out from behind one of the shipping containers to block her path.

“Sloane’s looking for you,” says the man in front of her. He’s earthborn, she thinks, based on the accent. She’s seen him around the port, but she’s seen everyone around the port at this point. She draws in a deep breath, drawing on her weak and little-used biotics to generate a shimmering shield between her body and those of the men surrounding her.

“I don’t have anything Sloane needs, Deibler,” Avery says, forcing her limbs to remain loose even as she sees him tensing at the display of her power. “Kaetus closed down headquarters early, so I’m just heading home for a nap.”

An easy lie, and an obvious one. The men behind her shift in closer, and tears spring to Avery’s eyes as Deibler starts to laugh. She clenches suddenly shaking hands into fists and lifts her jaw to harden her glare.

“That’s not what we heard,” Deibler says, and he actually cracks his knuckles to threaten her in the moment before she bursts into action.

Tearing her hands from her pockets, she uses them to help aim her biotics right at Deibler’s chest. The air rushes out of his lungs in a huff as he sails backward down the alley and slams into the side of the nearest block of apartments. 

She turns, spinning on the balls of her feet and ducking low to instinctively avoid the grasping hands of the man behind her. She lashes out and catches him in the side, but the pain that radiates up her arm tells her that he didn’t feel her punch through whatever layer of armor he’s wearing.

A biotic burst pushes him away, but the third man grabs her ponytail and  _ yanks _ , hard. Her vision goes white as she wails in pain, her whole body flying back until he can grab her elbows and hold her hands behind her back. She tries to slam her head back into his nose, but just hits the end of his chin. He grunts but doesn’t release her, even as she flails and kicks at him, unable to break his hold.

Panic wells as the man she punched looms over her, and she flails out again, using the man holding her as leverage to kick the one before her between the legs. He huffs in pain but he strikes her across the face in retaliation. She screams, more in fury than in the pain that blooms across her cheek, but the sound is cut off when he balls his fist and slams it into her stomach.

She doubles over, coughing, gasping for air even though her lungs refuse to work, and he grabs her hair again to help him slam her face into his knee. The man holding her lets her fall to the metal walkway and she curls into a ball as soon as she’s free, landing hard on her shoulder and not breaking her fall.

_ This is it,  _ she thinks just before a booted foot smashes into her ribs.  _ This is it _ , she thinks as another stomps on her knee and she screams again, this time through gritted teeth as blood drips into her mouth, and she lashes out blindly with her biotics even though she shouldn’t.

She must catch one of her remaining attackers, because there’s a loud thud of a body hitting the nearby cave wall and loud cursing from the man above her. Another kick to her ribs for good measure, and then her hands are being tied with something behind her back and her shoulders are being jerked too far and she’s screaming again, kicking with the leg that she can still control even as she’s lifted from the ground.

She’s dangling over the man’s shoulder, eyes watering, watching her own blood drip onto the ground, when the man turns around and freezes. His whole body tenses under hers for just a moment before he reaches for the pistol on his hip opposite Avery’s face, but the sharp sound of another weapon firing echoes through the cavern.

The man -- and Avery -- fall.

The last thing she sees before painless darkness finally, finally takes her is a pair of boots stepping into her narrowing line of vision.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> But oblivion is calling out your name  
> “Oblivion” by Bastille

Avery drifts back into consciousness slowly, becoming more and more aware of the radiating pain covering her body. She draws in a breath and immediately regrets it -- something’s wrong with her ribs on top of whatever was wrong with her lungs before, and just inhaling makes the pain there worse.

She tries to take shallow breaths as she takes stock of what else hurts. Her head aches -- not the kind of headache that comes from drinking too much, but the kind that comes from wearing your hair in a ponytail for too long combined with something else near her ear -- her right knee hurts and gets worse when she flexes her foot, her face hurts when she dares to blink open her eyes, and…

She’s in her apartment, at least, flat on her back on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. The lights are all on, bathing her in stark fluorescents instead of the gentle yellow of her nightlight. It takes several more pained breaths to realize why this feels wrong to her, other than her obvious injuries.

Someone carried her back to her apartment. Someone delivered medical treatment. Someone has kept her alive and out of Sloane’s clutches for this long -- if Sloane had her, she’d be in one of the holding cells or worse.

Avery holds her breath as she sits up, moving gingerly against protesting muscles. Upright, she pauses, sucking in shallow breaths against the dizzying pain. She needs to gather her things and get  _ out  _ of here -- maybe she can stop by the clinic for some pain blockers and then she can slip out into the Badlands like she intended.

Whoever’s protected her so far doesn’t need to keep worrying about her. She can -- well, no she  _ can’t  _ take care of herself, obviously, but she doesn’t need to be depending on other people to keep her alive.

She stands by putting her feet on the floor and both hands on the bed, testing her weak knee, then using the wall for support when it can’t bear her weight. She’s wearing different clothes now than she had been -- one of her torn Initiative tank tops and a pair of briefs -- so she can see the vivid bruising on her leg and side. 

_ Lovely. _

She continues holding on to the wall for support as she shuffles forward, heading around the divider to the main section of her apartment. First stop: bathroom, then the kitchen for water, then…

“Feeling better, I see.”

The sudden voice startles her and she freezes, still half obscured by the room divider. Reyes Vidal is sitting on her couch, his omnitool up and his fingers flying over its controls, but he’s barely paying attention to her.

_ What the hell. _

“Um… I guess.” Avery hovers, trying to decide if she wants to find a pair of pants, then decides it’s  _ her _ apartment and he can leave if he’s uncomfortable. Plus, the thought of anything touching her knee right now makes her wince, so she just continues her slow shuffle across the room. “Why are you here?”

She glances at him as she reaches the narrow door that leads into the bathroom, then slips in and locks it. He stays silent, and she turns to look at herself in the tiny mirror. Her face is bruised and swollen on the right side of her face, cuts obvious from her attacker’s armor. A little medigel would have gone a long way to healing that, but… there isn’t much of it on Kadara, so sparing some for what’s a cosmetic problem at worst is wasteful. But  _ still _ .

She frowns and tries to clean herself up the best she can, peeing and then washing her hands and face before leaning down to drink water right out of the tap. She doesn’t need to worry about wasting water if she isn’t going to be in the Port for more than a few minutes.

Reyes isn’t on her couch when she reemerges, but she finds him quickly enough in her kitchen, helping himself to a glass of water and a ration bar. She tries to summon up the energy to glare at him, but can’t seem to make the expression stick.

If he can tell what she’s thinking, he ignores it in favor of putting the food down on the counter and pushing them in her direction.

_ Oh. _

“Thanks,” she mutters, eyebrows drawing together as much as they can when her whole face hurts.

He glances at her, golden eyes assessing in a way that would make her blush at any other time, then pulls a packet of something out of his pocket and puts it by her water.

_ Blockers. Thank god. _

She sits on her one stool, hissing as her knee and side protest, then scoops up the meds without hesitation, washing them down with surprisingly cool water and a mouthful of dry energy bar.

When Reyes finally starts to speak, it’s gently. Avery watches as he leans with his elbows on her kitchen counter, looking for all the world like he belongs there. His expression is casual, but his eyes are surprisingly sharp as he says, “I already let Keema know you’re awake. She has been… very worried about you.”

Avery grunts around a mouthful of food and nods, hoping he’ll interpret this as a thanks.

“Dr. Nakamoto will come when he can. He saw to your injuries earlier, after you were… found.” Reyes pauses again, eyes boring into hers. If she had blood to spare to blush, her face would be bright red. “He did what he could to repair fractures, but resources are scarce. Most of your healing will need to be done the old-fashioned way.”

He smiles, but the expression doesn’t reach his eyes. He looks… angry about something, though what Avery isn’t certain. The lack of medical supplies? The fact that he’s having to stop whatever he would normally be doing in the middle of the day to hang out at her place? The fact that she almost died at the hands of Sloane’s people and the violence is so common that he doesn’t even need to ask why?

She cleans her mouth out with another deep pull of water, and Reyes takes the almost-empty cup away from her when she’s done to refill it without asking. “Thank you,” she says, hoping he knows she means the water  _ and  _ the information. “I… can’t really stick around. I need to get out of here.”

He nods. “Sloane is looking for you.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured that.” Avery tries to rub at her forehead and then winces and pulls her hand away. The bruising on her face and across her knuckles make her usual tic of exasperation too painful to help, and she just groans and closes her eyes instead. “God, I feel like I got run over by a fiend.”

Reyes arches an eyebrow, though Avery can’t see it as she starts to wilt against the counter. “I suppose you know what that feels like.”

She rests the uninjured side of her face against the cool countertop and sighs. “I do, actually.”

She lets that admission dangle between them, but he doesn’t push her to admit anything about her role in liberating the port from the kett when the exiles first arrived on Kadara. After a moment, she hears him drum his fingers against the counter, just once, then he starts to speak again.

“Keema’s under the impression that you may be able to help the Collective.” Even after all that’s happened, her shoulders still tense at the mention of Sloane’s only competition for Kadara Port. He ignores it and continues: “From what I understand, you helped a lot of people before Sloane caught on to your little scheme.”

This time, Avery does open her eyes. She sits up and puts her elbow on the counter and her chin in her hand. “I did what I could.”

Their eyes meet and the silence thickens. Reyes’ face gives away nothing of what he’s thinking, but his eyes --  _ Jesus, those beautiful eyes _ \-- are sharp and bright. 

“You didn’t think Sloane would eventually figure it out?” he asks, and he actually more curious than accusatory. 

Avery drops her eyes to her bruised hand and flexes her fingers while she thinks. Of  _ course  _ she knew that Sloane would figure out she was skimming money from one account and feeding it back to her through dozens of individual protection payments. The gentle stinging of her knuckles distracts her from the ache in the rest of her body, so she flexes her fingers again.

“Well, yeah,” is all she manages to say, then she stops to bite at the inside of her lower lip.

“And what’s your plan now? You have enough saved to survive in the Badlands?” 

Her eyes snap back up to his, then wander away again. She focuses over his shoulder on the cabinets that she knows are empty -- that she knows  _ he  _ knows are empty -- and purses her lips before she can force herself to spit out the thought swirling around in her mind.

“I just…” she pauses, sighs, tries again, voice sharper. “I  _ assumed  _ she’d kill me and that money wouldn’t be a problem later.”

The silence is thicker now in the wave of her confession, and shame burns her eyes. She hasn’t said that aloud before, and now it sounds so… goddamned whiny. Reyes still hasn’t moved, so Avery flexes her hand again to let the new pain ground her and turns to meet his gaze once more.

His eyes are soft, sad almost, but as soon as she recognizes the emotion, it’s gone. Nothing shines through now, leaving his face a blank mask that’s more frightening than anything else. Before her is a man who can hide his every thought from those around him and, she supposes, a man who knows how to get people to do exactly what he wants them to.

“If you wanted to avoid the Badlands,” Reyes finally says, speaking slowly and coldly, “what would it take?”

“What would it take?” Avery echoes, narrowing her eyes at this sudden turn. “Um. I would need somewhere else to live, I guess. A different name attached to my omnitool. I don’t think Sloane really knows what I look like, so as long as I can avoid being traced…” She trails off as Reyes shifts his gaze to his own omnitool to start shooting off messages. “What are you doing?”

He glances up at her from under his eyebrows. “Finding a new place for you to stay. Keema speaks very highly of you.”

“Uhh…” Avery’s mouth drops open, a denial stuck on the tip of her tongue. Reyes looks at her again and his mouth twitches, almost a smile. “Okay. I guess you  _ do  _ work for the Collective, then.”

“Mmm, I have many friends in many places,” Reyes demures. Avery resists the urge to roll her eyes, knowing whatever he’s doing right now is saving her life. “But, yes. I can help you begin work for the Collective.”

“Oh. Uh, thanks.” She pauses, considering, then pushes herself off of the stool to stand. “I have something for you, then.” She shuffles slowly, heavily favoring her right leg, across to the datapads lined up next to her couch. Reyes waits as she picks one up, checks it, then tries again until she finds the right one. She shuffles back to him, sweat standing out on her forehead as pain makes her stomach turn, and sits back down before keying in a few commands.

“Here,” she says, sliding it across the counter to him. He glances up at it but doesn’t pick it up. “It’s everything I have about Sloane’s operations. There’s some stuff about dead drops in there, some stuff about her guards…” She pauses as Reyes doesn’t react. “Um. Just whatever I happened to find.” It’s hard to keep her eyes open, suddenly, and she isn’t sure if it’s from walking around while injured or from the pain blocker starting to kick in. Either way, she’s ready for Reyes to take her datapad and leave.

Another couple of seconds fiddling with his omnitool and Reyes returns his full attention to her. “I’ll pass this along,” he says, scooping up the datapad and tucking it under his arm. He hesitates, then, “Nakamoto is on his way here now. If I leave you with him, will you be ready to leave in an hour?”

“Uhh--” One day she’ll be able to think fast enough when he asks her something to not trip all over her words. “Yeah. Yes. Thanks, um, thanks again.”

He smiles at her with a disarming amount of charm, winks, and turns on his heel to leave. She watches him go, completely unashamed, and waits until the lock on the door hisses closed to shuffle over to the couch.

She stretches out on her back, rests her good leg on the floor, and closes her eyes. The simmering panic in her chest threatens to boil over as silence fills the tiny space, broken only by the low hum of the climate control that’s keeping her from suffocating in the windowless room.

She counts her breaths -- slow but not deep -- and forces herself to be calm. Keema is obviously helping her from behind the scenes, Reyes is finding her somewhere new to live so she can help the Collective, and the slums doctor, the one Sloane fired, is going to patch her up more.

She’s going to be fine. Everything is going to be  _ okay. _

Her apartment door slides open and she starts to sit up, the carefully pushed down panic bubbling up again until she recognizes the doctor. He waves at her to lay back down, and she obeys without a second of hesitation.

She keeps her eyes on him though, watching as he comes to sit on the low table next to her. He sets his bag of supplies on the floor, then pulls up the scanner on his omnitool to check her progress.

“How are you feeling?” he asks, voice the same gentle tone she always hears from doctors.

“Terrible, but alive.”

He snorts a surprised laugh, then clears his throat. “Your knee is the worst of it. The ligament is partially torn and there’s some damage to the bone as well. I brought a brace for you, but you might need surgery later if it doesn’t heal properly. I’m… not sure I can do that here.” A pause, then as he frowns.

She reaches out and pats his knee. “We’ll just hope it heals right, then, won’t we?” She offers him a smile, and he nods and smile back.

“Right, right. I was worried about serious orbital fractures,” he touches his own cheekbone with a pinky to indicate the swollen portion of her face, “but it should heal on its own in a few weeks. Let me know if you have any vision changes before then. How does your head feel?”

“It… hurts, but not as much as before. The guy pulled my hair, so that hurts, and then it hurts at the back too.”

Nakamoto nods. “There’s some bruising, and your implant may have been damaged. I would wait two weeks before you try to use your biotics again, and there may be headaches before then, but there’s no permanent damage. Your hand will feel better in a couple of days -- there’s no serious damage there either. Your ribs will heal on their own as well, though it will be uncomfortable for a few weeks.”

Avery waits until he pauses to sigh. “Lovely.”

“Mmm. Try not to get jumped again before then, alright?”

She laughs, then cuts off with a groan as the pain in her side flares. “If those are the doctor’s orders, then I’ll try to manage it.”

He chuckles again. “Now -- I’m more concerned about your lungs.”

She turns her head and peers at him. “My lungs?”

He nods and leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “There’s significant scarring in your lungs. If it isn’t affecting you yet, it will. You’ll have trouble catching your breath, you’ll fatigue more easily, and any respiratory infections you catch will be more serious.”

She groans and squeezes her eyes closed. “Fuck.”

“Quite. I do have an inhaler here that will help. Use it when you need it, but I don’t have much more in stock, and getting things from the Nexus is… difficult.” There’s a long pause, then, and Avery thinks about falling asleep to escape, but she opens her eyes instead. 

“Right after the Nexus hit the scourge, the life support system was maybe one or two minutes from failing completely. Operated under 50% for months. Guess I can’t escape it.”

Nakamoto sighs so heavily it sounds like a growl. Avery was non-essential personnel and shouldn’t have been awake to see the results of breathing in toxic air. He knows what that means without her having to spell it out.

“Well.” He picks up his medical bag and rifles through it to find what he needs. He pulls out an inhaler, the medication for her lungs, and a small canister of medigel. He points to the canister first. “Use this on your knee when you need it. Everything else will heal on its own.” He points to the inhaler. “Have you used one of these before?”

“Nope.”

“Sit up and I’ll show you.” She obeys, carefully moving her injured leg to a more comfortable position to watch as he demonstrates the proper use, then guides her through taking her first dose. It stings the back of her throat, but she holds her breath to let the medicine sink into her ruined lungs before coughing.

He helps her put her brace on after that, showing her how to make sure it’s situated properly around her injured knee to support the healing tendon.

“There,” he says, a grim smile on his face. “You’ll be good as new in six to eight weeks.”

Avery laughs, surprised, and he grins back at her. “Thanks. Uhh -- I don’t, I don’t have any credits left to--”

Nakamoto holds his hand up to cut her off. “Don’t worry. I offer my services for free, and the Collective already made a donation anyway.”

“Oh. Okay, awesome.” Avery shifts again, then lifts her good hand up to smooth a lock of hair away from her face as Nakamoto starts to close his bag. “Oh! Wait. Do you have scissors in there?”

He hesitates before reaching into his bag and withdrawing a pair of scissors and offering them to her, handle first.

She shoots him a lopsided smile. “I’ll be right back.”

She stands before he can protest her running off with his medical equipment and shuffle-hops across to use the little bathroom mirror. She stares at her reflection for a long moment, looking at the damage to her face and the long, mousy-brown roots framing it.

Then, she begins to cut, letting the dry, dyed ends of her hair fall around her to the floor.

\---

Reyes leaves Avery’s apartment with his fingers flying over his omnitool. The sight of her hobbling around her apartment, face swollen, eye full of burst blood vessels, knee unable to support her weight, smiling even though she admitted to fully expecting to die… It enraged him; it  _ infuriates _ him that Sloane treats her own people that way, even the ones that are stealing from her.

No. Not ones who are stealing -- Reyes wouldn’t accept that from members of the Collective either. Ones who are using their skills to cover for others who can’t pay Sloane’s exorbitant collection fees to stay in the port.

Keema all but ordered him to protect Avery, and he’s glad he listened enough to show up to her apartment as part of a guard rotation to keep her safe from another attack by Sloane.

Her apartment wasn’t much different from others around the slums -- the exact same size, the exact same standard furniture that they all have -- but it was so empty. The water filter was maybe a few days away from needing replacement, her cupboards were devoid of any food beyond a handful of energy bars, some jerky, and an empty bag of coffee grounds. 

The woman would have starved to death if Sloane hadn’t caught her little embezzlement scheme. The Collective agent who found her said she tried using biotics to defend herself, but no wonder it wasn’t effective if she was barely eating. No one can survive like that, much less someone with a heightened need for nutrients.

He finds an apartment deeper in the slums, farther away from Tartarus and the lift but safer and surrounded by other trusted agents. She might be safer in the Badlands, in the Collective base in Draulir, but it will be easier to keep tabs on her inside the fence. Plus, if he can spread a rumor that she escaped  _ over _ the fence…

He makes sure the agents readying her apartment bring supplies, too. Food, mostly, to get her back to full strength. A spare water filter so she won’t need to worry for a few months. Enhanced security on the door. Just enough to get her through the transition and until she’s healed enough to fend for herself.

Back in his room in Tartarus, he orders drinks and settles himself on one of the couches to look through the datapad Avery gave him, hopes skeptically low. He’s been let down by false or outdated information countless times, but…

He scrolls through the lists of coordinates and names and dates, and at least a few of them are still good. He forwards the relevant ones to some of his agents outside and sits back to wait.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And if you’re still breathing, you’re the lucky ones  
> ‘Cause most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs  
> “Youth” by Daughter

Avery’s omnitool pings with a message from Reyes just after she’s finished pulling on a loose pair of shorts and putting all of her possessions into a single duffle bag. It’s heavier than she remembered it being on her way off of the Nexus, and she’s a little uncertain if she’ll be able to carry it to wherever she’s going next.

The message from Reyes is new contact information and directions on reprogramming her omnitool to send and receive messages from her new identity. She follows them to the letter, resetting the tool and installing the new information, trying very hard not to think about who used to be known as  _ Antonia Rossi. _

As soon as she’s finished, another message comes through to her new account.

_ > To: A. Rossi _ _   
_ _ > From: R. Vidal _

_ > Here’s your new address. _ _   
_ _ > See you around. _

_ > Reyes _

Attached is the location of another apartment deeper in the slums, designated by level, row, and apartment number. She shoulders the bag and tests her weight on her bad knee. It’s uncomfortable, but she can manage it.

She walks slowly to her new address, going to an area of the slums that she’s never visited before. It’s one of the newer levels of construction, added as more people realized they could settle on Kadara -- exiles who landed on other planets, angara who don’t want to work with the Resistance, and those people who left the Nexus after the uprising -- and it’s obviously nicer.

She finds her apartment and lets herself in, pausing long enough to reset the door codes, before she drops her bag and surveys her new place.

It’s… exactly the same as her old apartment. Everything’s in the same place, but cleaner, and there are two stools instead of one. And, probably most importantly, there’s a little bag of coffee sitting in the middle of the counter, right where she’s certain to see it.

Maybe Keema arranged for it to be delivered? That seems like something Keema would do, especially if she had a hand -- which she probably did -- in Avery’s rescue or recovery.

Temptation wins out over common sense, and Avery shuffles fully into the kitchen to prepare a tiny cup of coffee. If nothing else, maybe the caffeine will help her headache go away faster. She moves out of habit to open the cupboard that contained her cups in her old apartment, but here…

“Ho _ ly  _ shit,” she breathes. The cupboard, and the second one next to it, are both full of food. Or, at least, more full than she’s seen in all the months she’s lived on Kadara so far. Energy bars, jerky, some sort of dried angaran fruit, a bottle of… She pulls the last item off of the shelf and peers at it. Vitamins? Huh.

She replaces the vitamins in the cupboard and puts her inhaler and the little tin of medigel next to them before pulling out a little coffee press. It’s a little nicer than the one that had been in her other apartment, possibly smuggled fresh off of the Nexus, and she smiles as the scent of coffee fills the room.

Her omnitool pings again just as she sits down on the couch with her coffee to eat one of the energy bars. She settles herself carefully, propping her injured leg up and resting her back against the armrest before calling up the message.

_ > To: A. Rossi _ _   
_ _ > From: K. Dohrgun _

_ > Reyes tells me you’re better situated. I would like to see you as soon as you’re up to it. Perhaps in a few days you can come to Tartarus to see me again. _ _   
_ _ > I will even buy you a drink. _

_ > Keema _

Avery smiles and takes a big bite of her energy bar, brushing away the crumbs that fall onto her chest. Mouth full, she rests the bar on her stomach and types a quick acceptance, sending it off with a strange feeling settling in at the back of her mind.

Maybe, just maybe… it’s okay that she survived Sloane’s attack. Maybe this is something  _ better _ .

\---

Keema meets Avery at the entrance to Tartarus, waiting patiently as the human limps over to her down the final set of stairs. When Avery closes the distance, Keema offers her a smile and the traditional angara version of a handshake.

“You changed your… hair.” Keema leans down so that Avery will be able to hear her over the music and gestures towards the top of Avery’s head with one gloved hand. “You removed the red pieces.”

Avery rubs her good eye, then tugs at the longer pieces of her hair that fall over her forehead. It’s a little sloppy, but it’s a relatively cute pixie cut, short enough that the red is completely gone, abandoned on her old bathroom floor.

“Yeah. I thought it would help me hide better.” Avery pauses as she tries to hold back the silly question bubbling up her throat. She loses the battle: “Does it look okay?”

Keema shrugs a little and shifts her weight from one foot to the other. “You look much different, yes,” she says, and Avery wrinkles her nose at her. “If you find different clothing, you would be completely unrecognizable.” Her fingers pluck at one of the small holes at the hem of Avery’s tank top, but her gaze traces over the still-healing abrasions under her eye.

Most of the swelling is gone, and her knuckles are completely healed by now, but the injured bones still ache. If she didn’t want to bathe her knee in the medigel constantly, she would have used more of it on her face. As it is, she’s definitely going to have scars there, but that helps her hide her identity too.

And what do scars matter out here?

Avery heaves a sigh, bitterness creeping into her voice as she says, “I’ll be sure to arrange a girls’ shopping trip when the mall opens up.”

Keema blinks owlishly at her before deciding to ignore the confusing turn of phrase and push past it. She turns to lead Avery into the club, offering her support when she hears Avery’s grunt of irritation.

Avery leans against her with another irritated noise, already over having to depend on others for help and support. She’d be dead if it weren’t for her friends, and she’d still be stuck at the entrance to Tartarus instead of sitting at a booth safely tucked away in the shadows.

She balances her cane against the wall and props her knee up next to her, glaring at it. She looks up in time to see Keema rubbing her hands together anxiously, eyes bouncing from Avery’s braced leg to her black eye.

Ah. Angara aren’t good with illnesses -- injuries must fall into the same category. Avery waves her hand to get Keema’s attention back, and offers her a smile. “I’m fine, Keema. I believe I was promised a drink?”

Keema’s shoulders visibly relax, and Avery bites back a smile. She’s usually better at hiding her reactions, but she seems unsettled today. Perhaps a drink is just what she needs, and she nods before disappearing to go down a level to the bar.

Avery sits alone, fiddling with her omnitool to pass the time. She glances up occasionally, scanning the crowd for Keema, impatiently waiting for a little alcohol to take the edge off of everything that’s happened.

“Avery! I wasn’t expecting to see  _ you  _ here.”

Avery’s head snaps up when she hears Reyes’ warm voice, her whole face starting to burn under his attention. He’s grinning, his eyes amused, and she casts about for something to say to distract him from her reaction, though she’s certain he’s already noticed and filed it away.

“I’m sorry, you have me mistaken for someone else,” she finally says, but she still gestures at the bench across from her for him to sit. “ _ My _ name is Antonia.”

Instead, he grabs a chair from a nearby table and turns it around to sit on it backwards. Avery props her chin on her good hand and stares at him, trying to figure out how much is him being genuine and how much is him playing some sort of role that she hasn’t figured out yet.

“Oh, I’m very sorry,  _ Antonia,”  _ he says, putting more emphasis on her alias than necessary. She grins at him, and he smiles back. Then, his expression grows more serious. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine. Nothing that a stiff drink and five to seven more weeks won’t fix. Ah, there she is.” Avery grins over Reyes’ shoulder as Keema glides into view, a cup in each hand.

Keema glances at Reyes as she sits on the bench across from Avery and gives her one of the drinks. Addressing Avery and ignoring Reyes, Keema says, “Kian is worried about you. Said he heard you dispatched some of Sloane’s agents and then disappeared into the Badlands.”

Avery and Keema both turn to look at Reyes, who feigns surprise. “Why, Antonia, I didn’t know you had it in you.”

Avery smothers a laugh in her drink, but Keema looks thoroughly unimpressed.

“Must you make this a joke?” Keema asks, distress evident even before her bioelectricity makes Avery’s arms tingle. “I know her hair is different, but _someone_ will recognize her. Then what will Sloane do?”

Reyes leans forward and lowers his voice. “Sloane is already looking for Avery in the Badlands. She’s dispersed a notice to her people to look for her there, not here. As long as our  _ new friend  _ here keeps her head down and avoids the marketplace for a while, she should be fine behind the Collective’s protection.”

There it is again, that weird feeling of… complacency, or contentment perhaps? It’s different than the emptiness that’s been plaguing her for weeks. 

It takes her another swallow of her drink to remember that the word she’s looking for is  _ hope. _

“I’m okay, Keema, really,” Avery interjects, reaching across the table to grasp her friend’s hand. She squeezes Keema’s fingers with a soft smile, and the hairs on that arm stand on end as Keema’s bioelectricity tingles across her skin.

She pulls back and turns to Reyes to ask, “So it someone going to contact me to tell me what my new job is, or…” She trails off, lets the question hang in the air between them.

Reyes’ sharp gaze lands on her again, and she curses herself for blushing. The man is really too attractive for his own good -- or probably for  _ her  _ own good, honestly, and that voice gives her something to think about on the long nights she can’t sleep.

She has to shake herself to focus on what he’s saying when he starts to talk. “...recover for longer. You don’t need to rush into anything.”

Avery grimaces. “I’ll go crazy sitting in that little apartment all day. I have to do  _ something _ .” She bites at the inside of her lip as Reyes considers her, sharp eyes taking in everything from her bruises to her bitten-off nails to her foot propped up next to him on her bench.

Finally, he speaks. “I’ll see what I can find out for you, but I don’t make any promises.”

Avery nods at him, smiling, and thanks him politely. She doesn’t believe for one second that he’s just a go-between for some faceless Collective contact. He’s involved with them, somehow. He has enough pull to get her a new apartment, at the very least, and that’s more than  _ a man with many friends  _ should be able to do.

But she’s not going to argue with the man who saved her life. Or… who’s keeping her alive, at the very least. 

She takes another sip of her drinking, sighing as it burns down her throat -- Kian made it  _ strong  _ \-- and then looks up at Keema. The angara still looks anxious, a little twitchier than usual, eyes darting around as though assessing every single new alien she sees for threats against herself or Avery.

“So you’re part of the Collective too, then,” Avery asks, voice low and pitched not to carry farther than the table. Even Reyes has to lean in slightly from his position at the outside, but Keema barely reacts.

Her eyes flick to Avery’s and her pupils narrow slightly before expanding to focus more clearly. Then, she shrugs. “I am Sloane’s ambassador,” she says, though her tone sounds different than it has since Avery arrived. Avery can’t keep her eyebrows from creeping up as Keema finishes, “Nothing more.”

Avery purses her lips, glances at the bland-faced Reyes, then nods. “Gotcha,” she says, and then she winks.

Keema huffs a little angaran growl and Avery buries her nose in her drink to stifle her giggle. Beside them, Reyes chuckles as well.

Before he can say anything, though, a sharply accented voice breaks into their little bubble of camaraderie, calling Reyes’ name. Reyes half turns in his seat, a wide, genuine smile lighting up his face. Avery would swear that his eyes  _ sparkle  _ when he sees that same woman from the last time Avery was at Tartarus.

The woman’s eyes do not sparkle. They seem to burn as they look at Avery, though she allows Reyes to wrap an arm around her waist and pull her against his side. She rests her hand on the side of his neck and bends down to accept the kiss he’s offering with lifted face.

Avery has to physically resist the impulse to press her hand to her heart. It hurts, seeing such casual intimacy between two people. It’s something she had hoped to find in Andromeda, one day, after her father helped settle Habitat 7 and her duty on the Nexus was finished, instead of scraping by in exile by hooking up with people she picks up in a seedy nightclub.

“Antonia, this is Zia Cordier,” Reyes says, finally tearing his gaze away from Avery and rearranging his face into an expression more neutral and therefore appropriate for public viewing. Avery’s cheeks are burning when she reaches out to shake Zia’s hand. “Zia, this is Antonia Rossi. A… new business contact.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Avery says, politely, glancing over at Keema when Zia squeezes her fingers just a little too tightly. Keema’s jaw is set and her eyes slightly narrowed -- not really that far from her usual expression, but enough to make Avery’s own eyes narrow before she looks back up at Zia to extract her hand. 

Zia releases Avery, and her hand immediately goes back to Reyes’ neck. It lingers there, protectively, short fingernails pressing into his skin. Reyes can’t seem to help the small smile that curves his lips up at the corners as she leans against him, an involuntary sign of contentment.

“How, how do you keep your hair done here?” Avery blurts out, following up on the question she’s had since the first time she saw Zia. “It looks amazing. I had to just cut mine and start all over.” She resists the impulse to touch her new hair. Her cheeks are already flushing with embarrassment  _ again. _

Zia’s mouth twists into a little smirk, and she pats Reyes’ neck in a way that makes him tilt his head to give her more room to play with his skin. “There are definitely  _ benefits  _ to bedding the  _ best smuggler on Kadara _ ,” she says, and Avery can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic or not when she calls Reyes Kadara’s  _ best smuggler. _

Avery blinks, then glances from Reyes to Keema before turning back to Zia. “Oh,” she says, somewhat dumbly. “I, uh, I’ll keep that in mind?” She bites the side of her tongue to keep from saying anything else when Zia’s gaze sharpens into something more like a glare. 

Instead of saying anything to Avery, though, she just looks back down at Reyes. “Are you ready to go?”

“Ah! Yes,” Reyes says, like he’s just remembered he’s supposed to be on a date with Zia instead of hanging out with Keema and Avery, hidden away in a dark corner. He hops to his feet and grins down at his drinking companions. “I’ll see you ladies later.” Without waiting for their reply, he grabs Zia’s hand and tugs her along behind him toward the dance floor.

They watch him go in silence, then their gazes meet for a long moment before either of them speaks.

“He seems… happy,” Avery offers, finally, spinning her cup between her fingers.

Keema makes a disgruntled noise deep in her throat. “She is duplicitous even for a human.”

Avery giggles. “I don’t know, she seemed pretty clear just now. She might as well have pissed on him.”

“What?” Keema’s eyes widen at the phrase, and Avery has to stifle another laugh. “She might as well…  _ what _ ?”

“It’s just -- like marking her territory. She was telling me he’s taken.” A pause. “Animals don’t do that here?”

“Ah,” Keema’s shoulders relax and she nods. “I think… something did not translate properly. I understand. She did seem to be  _ pissing on him. _ ”

“As long as they’re happy,” Avery offers, gazing in the direction the couple disappeared as though she can still see them through the crowd. “There’s enough  _ un _ happiness here, we all deserve happiness where we can find it.”

“Hmm,” Keema says. “Yes. You are wise.”

“For a human?” Avery can’t help but tease Keema, grinning as Keema chuckles. She throws back the last of her drink and moves to grab her cane.

“Yes, for a human,” Keema agrees. “Let me help.” She stands and helps Avery climb to her feet -- well, to one foot and one cane -- and then hovers by her side as they begin to make their way out of the club. “I’ll walk you back to your apartment to make sure you are alright.”

There’s that feeling again. Hope. Contentment. “Thank you, Keema.”

“Of course.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now these days are feeling dark  
> We're struggling to figure out last year  
> “Snakes” by Bastille

It takes Reyes two more days to contact Avery with information about what she can do for the Collective. In the meantime, she spends her days going slowly crazy trapped in her little apartment, reading and napping and trying to ignore the persistent ache of her healing wounds.

She ventures out only occasionally, visiting Dr. Nakamoto to say hello and get more pain blockers when he has extra available and getting meals at the soup kitchen provided by the Charlatan before heading back to stretch out on her couch and stare at her ceiling.

No one seems to look at her twice, even people she remembers seeing before. Cutting her hair and scarring her cheek seems to have changed her appearance enough that no one even blinks if she introduces herself as Antonia, no one says  _ aren’t you Avery  _ or  _ didn’t you work with Sloane  _ or even _ did you know there’s a price on your head? _

She still stays in her apartment most of the time.

It’s a relief when Reyes finally messages her to tell her when he’s coming over. She tidies, puts on her shirt with the fewest holes, pokes at her face in the mirror and considers giving up some of her medigel to ease some of the scarring that follows her cheekbone before the twinge in her leg reminds her what it’s really for.

She sighs and turns away, sitting at the kitchen counter with a cup of her beloved coffee to wait.

Her door opens automatically when Reyes approaches it, just like she authorized it to, and she can see him pause mid-stride. He recovers after a split second, fast enough that she wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t already been watching, and continues past her into her apartment like he belongs there.

She watches as he sets a box on her table and starts sorting through it, sipping from her cup in the silence before finally saying, “Good morning to you too, Reyes.”

He glances at her, eyes sweeping over her in that detached, clinical way he has, gaze lingering briefly on her knee brace and scars before returning to her eyes. “Ah, where are my manners? Good morning, Avery.”

She smiles at him and slides to her feet, balancing on her left side as she offers, “Do you want some coffee?”

Again, he hesitates, just for that split second it takes for him to process what’s happening. That hesitation can’t serve him well when he’s working smuggling jobs or when he’s going around Kadara to do whatever it is he does for the Collective. Hospitality might be rarer on Kadara than it was back in the Milky Way, but surely that isn’t what keeps confusing him…

Reyes shakes his head once before declining her offer, so she drains her mug and leaves it on the counter before hobbling over to sit on the couch in front of Reyes to see what he’s brought over.

It only takes a couple of minutes with Avery watching in interested silence for Reyes to set up the small terminal he brought her, installing it on the low table in front of the couch where she asked him to in lieu of a desk and configuring the settings to work with Avery’s omnitool.

It surprises her when he speaks, focused as she was on his actions. If he notices her jump, he doesn’t mention it.

“What was your job on the Nexus?” he asks, sitting at the edge of the other end of the couch, adjusting the terminal so they can both see it. He doesn’t look at her, but she doesn’t take her eyes off of him.

Avery hesitates for a moment before deciding to just be honest. “I was supposed to work with Addison in Colonial Affairs,” she says. “I was one of the team deciding when to wake people up from cryo, when the settlements could handle new bodies and when the costs were worth it.”

He finally looks at her then, though his fingers continue to fly over the keyboard. “ ‘Colonial Affairs’?” he echoes. “I thought you must have been security.”

She tilts her head to the side to consider that. “Oh, because of my biotics?” When he nods, she just shrugs. “I was in the Alliance for a couple of years because of them, but I never really liked fighting, and they’re not that strong to begin with. I got a finance degree after my discharge. So: Colonial Affairs, not security.” When Reyes doesn’t say anything right away, she adds, “I’m better with numbers than guns.”

He nods, nearly expressionless in that way he has. “So you weren’t pulled from stasis on purpose,” he observes. It’s a statement, not a question, but Avery nods anyway as he says, “Not like I was, to pilot through the scourge to find new planets.”

A voluntary answer to a question she hadn’t asked, and her lips twitch up into a small smile. He leans back on the couch and crosses one ankle over his other knee and stretches his arm along the back of the cushions. Avery sits up a little straighter, trying to give him more space so her bare toes aren’t in danger of brushing against his thigh.

“My pod was in a group that malfunctioned, so I got to see Andromeda before almost everyone else.” She says it with a grin and a little laugh, like it’s a joke, like she doesn’t wake up more nights than not sweating and nauseous and afraid she’s still stuck in that pod trying to claw her way out.

Reyes raises his eyebrows, and Avery blushes, but he doesn’t call her out on it. If anything, his posture seems to soften. “And then you ended up here with Sloane?”

Avery grimaces, wrinkling her nose at him, and he smirks right back at her. “Eventually, yeah. I mean… uh, I was exiled with… the first group that left the station--” The group that was part of the original coup, the one that stole weapons and damaged the Nexus, she means, though Reyes doesn’t react to that admission either. “And I guess someone _ here  _ knew what I was supposed to do  _ there _ . After… after we took control of the port and things started to settle down, they offered me a job.”

She shrugs again and drops her eyes to her hands, watching herself scratch at her own fingernails. The first weeks on Kadara were intense ones, the days blending together in Avery’s memory until she can’t always remember what happened when. At first, working for Sloane had been fine -- Sloane had been normal and reasonable, had paid well and asked for little.

Something obviously changed her.

“Did you work with Sloane personally?”

Avery shakes her head and drags her mind back to the present. She forces herself to look back up at Reyes, taking steadying breaths to keep her voice from shaking too. “No, never. She had better things to do, I guess. The only person I ever really talked to was Cato Ludus…”

Remembering the turian who was almost a friend makes Avery stop cold, her lips still parted on the next word she was going to say. She hasn’t seen Cato since her last day in the market, and she hasn’t heard from him either -- although, with her new identity, getting a call or message from him would be nearly impossible.

She snaps her jaw shut and bites her lip before looking back at Reyes. Cato was in charge of making sure she didn’t steal from Sloane, but she  _ had  _ stolen from Sloane. 

_ Shit. _

“I don’t suppose you know…” Avery starts, then stops. She takes a deep breath under Reyes’ watchful gaze and tries again: “If anything happened to him after I… uhh, left Sloane?”

“Cato Ludus?” Reyes repeats the turian’s name and pulls up his omnitool. Avery nods, even though he isn’t looking at her, and waits without speaking as he keys in some commands -- from the looks of it, sending out a message to one of his contacts, one of the  _ many friends  _ he said he has. When he’s done, he dismisses the interface and looks back at her. “I’ll see what I can find.”

Avery nods at him and swallows hard against the churning anxiety. Suddenly desperate to erase the mental image of Cato’s head stuck on a spike outside of the docks -- his eyes glassy, mandibles loose, skin under his fringe pale and bloodless -- she looks at the blank screen of her new terminal and spits out, “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Ah.” Reyes’ shoulders relax as the subject turns back to business. 

Moving to hover on the edge of the couch, closer to Avery while still leaving her room to stretch her injured leg out behind him, he logs into the terminal with Antonia Rossi’s identity, showing Avery how to securely access the Collective’s network. From there, he explains why the Collective needs her: similar to what she was doing for Sloane, she’s going to be working with the Collective’s funds made available to pay protection fees. 

“You realize I was embezzling from Sloane, right?” Avery interrupts, gesturing at the screen with her fingers spread and her palm up. “Do you really want me in charge of your money?” Never mind that she has no intention of stealing from the Collective, but it does seem like something the Charlatan, or  _ whoever  _ is in charge of Avery’s new employment, should consider before giving her the proverbial keys to the kingdom.

Reyes turns fully on the couch to study her. This close, Avery can smell him (clean, like some kind of soap, not the cheap stuff available in the market, and  _ not  _ like sulfur or old sweat -- it’s really quite nice), and she can see the gold flecks in his brown eyes. The cushions dip where he rests his hand for support, and she pulls herself away to stay upright.

“If I thought,” he says, speaking each word very clearly so she won’t misunderstand him, “that you stole from Sloane to get rich and run off into the Badlands with your ill-gotten goods, then I wouldn’t have responded to Keema’s messages that day. I do my homework, Avery. You were trying to help  _ protect  _ the people of the Port from Sloane, just like the Charlatan.”

He pauses and blinks, and then suddenly his whole face has lit up with a smile. Avery wills her face not to turn pink, but she can tell she’s utterly failing when Reyes’ eyes dip to her cheeks before returning to her eyes. “It may have been a little  _ sloppy _ , but your heart was in the right place.”

Avery opens her mouth to protest, eyebrows shooting up in indignation, but she barks out a laugh when she realizes he’s teasing her. His grin grows, showing white but slightly crooked teeth, and she punches his shoulder. He rocks back gently and chuckles as she shakes her head at him.

“Okay, no sloppy embezzlement,” she says. “Those days are behind me.”

Reyes nods and his eyes sharpen. It’s like being stared down by a wolf -- her instincts say to shrink down and look smaller or to run and hide, but she channels her Alliance days and holds her ground as he says, “We  _ will  _ check, of course. No one works alone. We can’t afford mistakes or betrayals.”

“I understand. No, uh, no embezzlement of any kind, then.”

He chuckles and turns back to the terminal. “Very good.” 

The orientation continues through the rest of her duties. As more people leave the Outcasts for the protection of the Collective, she’ll process their information and let someone else in the Collective know -- someone working out of one of the Collective bases in the Badlands named Octans. 

She’s also in charge of finding what she can about Sloane’s operations. Anything she can find from her terminal without leaving her apartment. Since she worked at the headquarters most recently, and since they don’t have any agents on the inside ( _ yet _ , as Reyes optimistically corrects himself), she knows their network systems the best.

“I’m not really a hacker,” Avery points out, glaring at the blinking cursor on the screen and missing the amused glance Reyes gives her.

“You know more than I do,” Reyes corrects. Avery grimaces. “This isn’t the main reason we need you. You’re just taking pressure off of other Collective members, freeing them up to do more work in other places. Anything you can find, anything like what was on that datapad you gave me, is a bonus and will be treated as such.”

“As a bonus?”

“Information about Sloane’s operations is always met with a reward,” Reyes says. “And -- I should have said this earlier, but  _ Antonia Rossi’s  _ protection fees are included in your employment. You’ll see the name when it comes due.”

Avery nods and drums her fingers on her thigh. Her future on Kadara suddenly stretches before her. Day after day for the rest of her life, sitting in this little apartment, paying protection fees and trying to hack into Sloane’s network without being caught, spending her nights in Tartarus, until Sloane finds her or until the sulfur kills her or until the kett return to take over the port.

She rubs her eyes and then pinches the bridge of her nose before groaning and folding in on herself, “I should have stayed on earth.” She can feel Reyes’ surprise before she opens her eyes to see it on his face.

“Why  _ did  _ you come to Andromeda, then? Other than to be Addison’s assistant, of course.”

She studies his expression for a moment -- serious, concerned, sincere -- and decides to tell him the truth. “I didn’t want to be alone,” she admits. “My mom died a couple of years before I signed up. Our dad, uh, was heavily involved from the beginning, so he was always going to come, and he got my brother to sign up too. I didn’t have much of a choice, really.” She chuckles, but it’s bitter sounding, even to her.

She pauses to let Reyes reply, but he stays silent, just listening, so she continues. “Anyway, I guess our dad talked to Jien and got me a job in Colonial Affairs, so I sold everything I had and got in that cryopod without a look back, expecting to wake up in Andromeda after everything was settled and they were getting ready to send colonists out to the golden worlds. And, instead…” Her traitorous voice chokes, so she clears her throat and glances away from Reyes. “Anyway. They’re out there somewhere on the Hyperion, and I’m here with a busted knee.”

Reyes glances at her knee, fingers twitching like he wants to soothe her. He doesn’t move his hands from where they’re resting between his knees. “Your father is the human pathfinder,” he says. “Alec Ryder.”

Avery groans at his realization but nods. “Yeah. Brother: Scott, also on the pathfinder team that I refused to join. I just wanted a simple desk job, a little house on one of the planets, a family, maybe a dog or something -- I think they brought the DNA.”

“The Hyperion might still make it,” Reyes says gently. “The Natanus did.”

“The Natanus ejected its pods at random,” Avery corrects. “I’ll believe the Hyperion is safe when I see Alec with my own eyes.”

If Reyes is thrown by her calling her father by his first name, he doesn’t mention it. He moves to face her, sitting sideways on the couch. His thigh presses against her injured knee, but she ignores the twinge of pain in favor of enjoying the warmth of his leg against hers.

“I was supposed to be a pilot for the Initiative,” Reyes says. “That’s why I signed up -- I resigned from the Alliance so I could come out here. I wanted to be able to start over in a new place, leave mistakes in the past. I wanted to come here to  _ be  _ someone.”

He stops before he can finish the thought. Did he want to be someone important? Someone good?

“Did you leave anyone behind?”

He shakes his head once. “No one important.” So…  _ yes _ , probably, but no one worth missing. Friends, ex-lovers, but no one close, just like her, just like a lot of people who joined the Initiative. “Andromeda was a lot of things to a lot of people.”

“No one expected this shit show.” Avery offers Reyes a slightly-wobbly smile, and he offers a bright one in return. 

“True. I certainly never expected to be working alongside the beautiful daughter of the infamous Alec Ryder.”

She groans and considers punching his arm again. Instead, she covers her eyes with both hands. “I have  _ got  _ to change my name. This  _ Ryder  _ thing is more trouble than it’s worth.”

Reyes chuckles, and she hears him tapping on the keyboard. She opens her eyes to watch him power down the terminal. A glance at her omnitool lets her know hours have passed, somehow, between chatting and working, and they haven’t accomplished that much. She has three messages from Keema and one from Kian -- the latter promising a free drink if she can make it down the stairs to the club -- and one message from an account she doesn’t recognize letting her know she’s received her first payment from the Collective.

Reyes stands then and offers Avery his hand. He helps her stand and props her up while she grabs her cane. She valiantly tries to ignore how warm his hand feels and the calluses on his palm that rasp against her skin. 

She releases him as soon as she can, leaning on her cane instead. Nakamoto seems to think that everything is healing properly, so if she continues being careful, she might make a full recovery. Until then, she still needs to be careful -- and Reyes offering her his elbow in lieu of his hand is too tempting for her weak, weak self to pass up.

“You deserve a break,  _ Ms. Ryder _ ,” he says, drawing out her name and making her blush yet again even when she rolls her eyes. “Buy me lunch?”

Avery laughs despite herself and leans against him a little more heavily than she needs to. “Lead the way, Mr. Vidal.”

Maybe over lunch he’ll do or say something and this little crush she’s developing on her -- new boss? Coworker? Friend? -- will disappear and she can go back to thinking about her books and her shitty future as a wanted woman on Kadara instead of what his lips might taste like or how his tongue will feel against her skin.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve got something on my mind  
> Like I’m out every night  
> But all I do is miss you  
> And you’re not even mine  
> “Wishing it Was You” by K.Flay

“What are you drinking tonight, Reyes?” Avery leans on the bar at Reyes’ side, waving a greeting at Kian as she settles herself.

Reyes peers into the cup clutched in his hand and swirls the contents thoughtfully before answering. “Kian  _ claims  _ it’s whiskey.” He says this just in time for Kian to hear, and Avery watches his lips twitch at the corners as he tries to hide his smile at Kian’s indignant noise.

“If you feel like  _ that  _ you can go get your next drink from Umi,” Kian says, a glare directed in Reyes’ direction over his near-permanent scowl. 

“And we all know she doesn’t have Kian’s winning personality  _ or _ his good looks,” Avery adds, lips twisting into a smirk as she looks between the two men.

This draws Kian’s ire in her direction, though it cracks as she winks at him and Reyes starts to chuckle. “If you’re aiming for free drinks, you’re better off flirting with Reyes than me,” Kian informs her, but that just stretches her smile a little wider and right up to the edge of becoming a grimace.

“That sounds like a great way to get Zia’s boot up my ass,” she says, lifting up her omnitool to start a credit transfer to Kian. “I’ll just get  _ myself  _ drunk tonight since you’re both useless to me.” Kian accepts her payment with a smile and then hands her a cup of the same whiskey Reyes is drinking -- he was right, it  _ doesn’t  _ taste quite right after its time on Kadara -- and then disappears to help customers who will pay him with less sass.

“Speaking of,” Avery says, resisting the urge to cough as she turns around to lean back against the bar, facing out to look at the swarm of people instead of in at the bar or over at Reyes. “Where  _ is  _ Zia?”

Reyes pauses long enough that Avery gives in and turns to look at him. His face is blank but his eyes are bright, the same expression he always has when he’s feigning disinterest. Avery gives him a flat look as she waits, sipping on her drink, until he says, “She’s probably putting her boot up someone’s ass as we speak.”

Avery rolls her eyes at him and shakes her head, hiding her smile behind her cup. She turns back to the crowd, scanning for Keema or other familiar faces -- she’s still a little nervous showing her face so casually, but most of Sloane’s dedicated people avoid the slums unless they have to come down for some reason. So far, so good, but she still wakes up some nights convinced she’s about to be dragged back into that throne room and --

“She’s out on a run,” Reyes answers, more quietly than before but still loud enough to pull her out of a spiral of anxiety. He’s a step closer now, speaking so that his voice won’t carry much beyond her hearing. “She’ll be back in a day or two.”  

“For… the Collective?” The question is out before Avery can think better of it and put her curiosity away where it belongs, but Reyes just shakes his head once with an exaggerated mock-frown before indulging her.

“She does her own thing,” he says, then finishes off his drink and waves the empty cup at Kian. “And I do mine.”

“I’ll buy your next drink if you tell me what  _ your thing  _ is.” She’s smiling but completely serious in her offer, and Reyes’ answering chuckle lets her know before he speaks what his answer is going to be.

“I’ll buy  _ your  _ next drink if you answer one of  _ my  _ questions instead,” he offers, deflecting as easily as he always does. Shrugging -- and ignoring the coil of disappointment in her belly -- she downs the rest of her drink and hands him the cup as she starts to cough.

A waitress refills their drinks and takes Reyes’ payment in the most flirtatious way Avery can imagine without stripping naked or climbing into his lap, but Reyes doesn’t even seem to notice. He must -- a man as smart as he is with a smuggling business as successful as his appears to be wouldn’t miss interpersonal tells like that.

But, instead of doing anything about it, he just… she doesn’t know, files it away as information to be called back up when it’s useful, probably, just like he does with everything  _ she  _ tells him when they’re able to sit and chat like this.

Little things, like about how she hated talking to Addison when they were trapped on the Nexus, about her favorite foods back in the Milky Way, about her brother, about her mom, about Alec.  _Everything_ goes into that bright mind of his to be picked back up again when he’s ready, all while he keeps his own secrets like it would be the end of the world if he let slip that he has siblings or what his parents’ names are. 

Reyes’ low voice in her ear draws her mind back to Tartarus as he leans a little closer to speak just to her. “Your biotics -- they react with the angara’s natural bioelectricity.”

Avery’s eyes snap to Reyes’. “Uh-huh?” she confirms, lifting the end of her sound to make it into a question. “That what you wanted to ask?”

His face tells her to be patient. “Does that translate to… other areas as well?”

“Other… areas?” Avery is barely able to repeat his question before falling into giggles. Reyes smiles broadly at her reaction, taking in the way her cheeks turn pink and her eyes crinkle at the corners, the way she covers her face when she accidentally snorts and starts laughing harder. “Are you asking me about fucking the angara, Vidal? That’s why you bought me a drink?”

“Call it… sating my curiosity.”

Avery giggles again and takes a sip of her drink before trying to answer. “I’m sure you could  _ sate  _ your own curiosity about what an angara is like in the bedroom. I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

“Really? Never?” Reyes seems genuinely surprised by her admission, but it can be a little hard to tell with him. “I’ve seen you leave here with asari on your arm more than once; you could take home an angara if you wanted to.”

She looks at him askance from the corner of her eye, but he’s looking out into the crowd, leaning with his hip against the bar. 

“Reyes, you -- I’m not, I’m not going to sleep with one of them just because you want to know if it  _ tingles, _ ” she finally forces out, and she can’t help but smile in response to the ridiculous shit-eating grin that grows on his face at her words. “You’re more likely to catch one than I am. Maybe  _ you  _ should let  _ me  _ know.“

Reyes takes another drink before responding, though he doesn’t look at her. Instead, his eyes are bouncing around the room, looking at each person as though trying to track each one individually. “I’m more of a… one-partner kind of man, but if I hear anything interesting…” He lets his sentence trail off before turning his head to give Avery a wink.

She bushes again, simply from being the sole center of Reyes’ attention. She buries her nose in her cup and drinks the burning alcohol.

Conversations with Reyes always go better with Keema as a buffer. They go  _ worse  _ when Zia is around to stare at her with those cold eyes and puckered lips like she  _ knows  _ all about Avery’s crush on Reyes. Finding out that Zia is off-planet, or at least out in the Badlands, for a couple of days is the first good thing that’s happened in  _ days. _

Without Zia, it’s easy to pretend the woman with the perfect eyebrows and the perfectly dyed hair and the steely grip on Reyes’ heart just… doesn’t exist. It’s easy to pretend, even as they stand awkwardly against Kian’s bar instead of dancing, that her hopeless little crush isn’t quite so hopeless after all.

She can’t pretend when Zia is in front of her, soaking up all of Reyes’ attention and not giving him anything back but cool acceptance. Just about the only advantage to Zia’s presence is that Keema spends the whole night annoyed and bristling with bioelectricity and is usually good for a few scathing remarks that make Avery laugh.

Beside her, Reyes lifts his arm without making a sound to peer at his omnitool. Avery tries to spy on the orange display without turning her head, but she barely has time to register the glow before it’s gone again and Reyes is finishing the rest of his drink with a long swallow and a grimace.

He puts the drink on the bar behind Avery before grabbing her elbow, squeezing gently to get her attention and say goodbye at the same time. She leans into his touch, blinking up at him as he says, “Something came up--”

“Yeah, yeah, of course, I’ll see you later.” Avery shakes her head and smiles even as she clutches her cup tighter to avoid doing something stupid like trying to hug him. He might be physically affectionate with Zia -- and, to an extent, Avery and Keema too -- but they’re still not really  _ huggers _ .

He still winks at her before disappearing, and she unabashedly watches him walking through the crowd until he disappears into the throngs of people. Then, she turns toward the bar in time to catch Kian watching her with raised eyebrows. As soon as their eyes meet, he rolls his at her, and she spins away with a flush darkening her face.

She leaves her cup on the bar and slips into the crowd too, finding the rhythm of the song and falling into it without hesitation. She lets it guide her movements, distract her from everything else that’s going on -- from Reyes, from Zia, from her knee that aches and her scars that she hates even though Kian describes them as  _ badass,  _ from the fact that she’ll never see her family again -- and she just dances.

She sees a flash of brown hair out of the corner of her eyes, so she turns toward it and finds herself in the arms of a man she vaguely recognizes. She’s danced with him before, probably, based on the way he falls easily into her rhythm and holds her hips against his. She loops her arms around his neck and follows her instincts, closing her eyes to let the rest of her troubles wash away.

She follows him when he starts to pull her away from the crowd, lets him guide her through the slums, and only changes his course when he starts to lead her down to his apartment. He lets her tuck them into one of the little nooks all around the slums and drag his face down to hers.

Their kisses taste like whiskey and sweat when she opens her lips to them. It’s easy enough, when she closes her eyes and turns around to brace herself against the rough stone wall, to pretend that the man behind her is a certain golden-eyed smuggler bringing her to her peak.

\---

Avery is just transferring the last payment for the most recent batch of protection fees when her omnitool buzzes. She flinches a little at the sudden interruption, then laughs at herself before pulling up the incoming message.

_ > To: A. Rossi _ _   
_ _ > From: K. Dohrgun _

_ > Sent with High Importance _

_ > I need your help. _ _   
_ _ > Now. _

An address is attached, to an apartment Avery’s never been but she knows isn’t too far away. She hesitates, staring down at the glowing words to determine what the chances are that someone’s hacked Keema’s omnitool and is using the vague message to lure her into a trap to turn her over to Sloane. 

Her stomach climbs its way up to lodge in her throat, constricting painfully, and her next breath comes out as a wheeze before her omnitool buzzes again and a second message from Keema pops up.

_ > To: A. Rossi _ _   
_ _ > From: K. Dohrgun _

_ > Reyes’ apartment.  _ _   
_ _ > He needs help. _ _   
_ __ > Door codes attached.

_ > K _

Avery puffs out a breath. That’s as much of a reassurance as she’s going to get, so she sends a confirmation to Keema while shoving her feet into her boots. She doesn’t pause to lace them before speed-walking out of her apartment, barely stopping to lock the door behind her before heading toward the address in Keema’s first message.

It’s only a few minutes away, down a few narrow staircases into a cheaper area of the slums. Spotlights illuminate the darkest corners, showing the improved infrastructure since the Collective moved in and started making changes. 

Reyes’ door opens as soon as she sends it Keema’s code, swooshing to reveal an apartment slightly smaller than hers but otherwise identical. Keema is standing in the middle of the room, hands on her hips, bioelectricity crackling the air around her enough to make the little hairs on her arms and on the back of her neck stand up.

“What happened?” Avery starts, but the unmistakable sound of someone retching from the bathroom a few feet away cuts her off. Keema’s bioelectricity surges until the sound fades, and she turns to glare at Avery.

“Zia Cordier happened,” Keema hisses, and Avery’s eyebrows shoot up. She walks farther into the apartment so that the doors shut behind her, hovering between Keema and the counter to wait for more information. “She left him like this outside of Kralla’s. He would have died had Umi not called me.”

“What?” Avery repeats, voice too high. She can hear Reyes getting sick again inside the bathroom, but she talks over the noise to demand, “What’s wrong with him?”

“He was drugged,” Keema answers simply, though her voice is nearly shaking in rage. “She drugged him and left him and, according to Umi, took off with his ship. If I ever see that  _ vehshaanan _ again--” she trails off, switching to a fast-paced dialect of shelesh that Avery’s translator can’t pick up, probably detailing a painful death for Zia.

Listening to Reyes, Avery is inclined to agree with whatever Keema is saying.

Finally, Keema takes a deep breath and tries again, forcing herself to speak calmly enough that Avery will understand. “You need to stay with him so I can track her down.”

“Me?” Avery asks, dumbly, and Keema levels her with an impatient glare.

“I can’t very well make sure he doesn’t hurt himself and find  _ that woman  _ at the same time,” she snaps, and her bioelectricity flares again. This time, Avery pushes back with a weak biotic field, just enough to let Keema know  _ message received calm the fuck down.  _ Keema takes another breath and shakes her head. “I will be back as soon as I find her or Reyes’ ship.”

Without waiting for a response, she turns on her heel and stalks out of Reyes’ apartment.

Avery blinks after her and has to take a few deep breaths of her own to calm down. What on  _ earth  _ would possess Zia to drug Reyes and steal his ship?  _ Why  _ would she do that to him? Surely there are simpler ways to break up with someone, even on Kadara.

She takes exactly one more second to calm down and center herself before finding a glass and filling it with water. She carries it into the bathroom, peering slowly around the corner, uncertain of what she’ll find.

Reyes is sitting next to the toilet, leaning with his head against the wall. His eyes are closed, his chest heaving, face shining with a combination of sweat and what look like tear tracks down his cheeks. He’s wearing a dark shirt that  _ used  _ to be nice, with a collar and buttons down the front, but now it’s ripped and stained with bodily fluids that Avery doesn’t want to think about.

He looks  _ wrecked _ . Avery’s heart squeezes tight in her chest, fury at Zia combining with an overwhelming desire to help Reyes, leaving her paralyzed for the moment it takes for Reyes to realize he’s not alone and open his eyes.

They’re red when he looks up at her, and he quickly squeezes them shut again. “What?” he snaps, voice hoarse and surly. 

Avery’s eyebrows draw together. “I brought you some water.” She kneels next to him and offers the glass. He takes it, opening one eye just enough to see. Hands free, she reaches out and places the back of one against his forehead, then down to his cheek as though looking for a fever. His skin is flushed and a little clammy, no fever in sight, but he leans into her touch without opening his eyes.

She presses her lips together against the sigh that wants to escape and gives in to the temptation to run her thumb over his cheek just once before pulling away. Her movement makes him open his eyes again, and this close she can see how bloodshot they are, how deep the shadows under them suddenly seem.

“Hey,” she says, voice soft. He blinks at her, slow and sluggish. “Can you drink some of that water? You’re dehydrated.”

Another slow blink, as though he’s having a hard time parsing the meaning behind her words, and then Reyes brings the glass up to his lips. His hand is shaking, the water sloshing unsteadily in the glass, and Avery reaches out to help steady it as he drinks.

He pulls his face away after only a few small swallows, grimacing, and lets Avery take the cup back and put it on the floor next to them.

“Okay?” she asks, hands fluttering uselessly for a moment before she decides to put one in her lap and one on his knee. Again, he leans into her touch even as he covers his face with his hands. “Talk to me,” she says, rubbing her palm back and forth on his knee, petting him despite the hesitance in her that says she’s taking advantage. He obviously needs comfort, and he’s always been a physical person. If she put her hand on his shoulder, he’d probably fall over and go to sleep in her lap right here on the bathroom floor.

“Why did--why did Keema call  _ you _ ?” he demands, words slurred and voice muffled behind his palms. 

“I’m happy to see you too, Reyes,” Avery says, grimacing at both the sting of his words and the bitterness that crept into hers. “She didn’t want to leave you alone but didn’t want to let, uh, to let Zia get too far away either.”

The mention of Zia’s name seems to spur Reyes into action, and he pushes himself to his feet with one hand on the toilet and one hand on Avery’s shoulder. She grunts under his weight but struggles to her feet as well, grabbing his elbow to keep him upright as he wobbles.

“Zia--” he growls, then stops and squeezes his eyes closed as the bathroom apparently starts to swirl around him again. His knees buckle, and Avery steps closer into his space, holding him up with both arms around his waist. He clears his throat as she presses him against the wall, using the solid surface to prop him up. “The bitch tried to kill me.”

“Mmhm, I heard. Can you just--” she presses her hands into his chest to pin him against the wall and pulls herself away, putting space between her body and his.

He’s at least sober enough to realize he’s too heavy for her to hold up and tries to prop his weight against the wall too. One hand comes up to cover his eyes again and the other presses against the wall behind him. He sighs heavily, sending a wave of sour breath over Avery, making her grimace.

“How much did you have to drink, anyway?” Avery demands, safely away from the various scents wafting off of Reyes’ person, her hands still planted in the middle of his --  _ warm and very firm  _ \-- chest.  “You’re shitfaced.”

“I have -- I have a three drink muh-maximum,” Reyes forces out. “She put something in my drink,” he adds, and then he descends into slurring Spanish, too fast for Avery to try and parse out when her translator is only set to non-human languages. 

She yanks her hands away from him without warning, and he starts to slide down the wall. This startles him out of his angry ramblings, and he reaches out with both hands to grab onto Avery’s shoulders to hold himself upright.

This just makes them  _ both _ fall as she puts too much weight on her bad knee. They collapse onto the bathroom floor in a heap, Reyes already apologizing profusely, thankfully in a language Avery understands, with pain shooting up her leg that makes her eyes water and her teeth clench. His cup spills, soaking through both of their pants immediately. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he says, over and over, hands pawing at her to see if she’s okay. She swats them away before they reach her actual injury and pulls herself back up. 

“Just-- ugh, let’s just get you to bed and some more water, okay?” She leans all of her weight on her good knee, left hand on the little sink, and reaches her right hand down for Reyes. This time, he stands without pulling her down again. “Christ, you’re heavy. Next time someone drugs you, I’ll chase them down and Keema can wrangle your ass.”

For some reason, this makes Reyes grin. It’s a little thing, lopsided, but it makes his eyes light up beautifully.

Avery clears her throat. “Come on, these bathrooms aren’t really made for two people. I’m getting claustrophobic.” Not a lie, but definitely not the whole truth either, not that he needs to hear all of the reasons she doesn’t want to keep standing here with him.

Reyes shakes his head, the smile dropping as fast as it appeared. “No.”

“No?” Avery echoes, eyebrows rising.

“I can’t -- I have to  _ shower _ .” Reyes looks down at himself, at his stained shirt and pants, and Avery does too. 

“Just take your clothes off and get in bed like that. You can’t shower right now--” she starts, but Reyes apparently just heard  _ take your clothes off  _ and started to obey without listening to the rest of her suggestion. He, very unsteadily, starts to pull at the buttons of his shirt, wobbling enough that Avery grabs for him again. “Reyes, you can’t even  _ stand up  _ by yourself--”

“I’m  _ fine, _ ” he snaps, surly again, and Avery releases him. Free to move on his own, Reyes half-sits on the sink and continues yanking at his shirt buttons until he undoes enough to pull it off over his head. An undershirt follows it to the floor, then his pants go and get caught around his shoes.

Avery stares at the ceiling, arms crossed over her chest, then turns around completely to turn the shower on for him. Reyes squeezes past her, completely naked, and steps into the stream. His feet, already unsteady, slip on the wet tile, and Avery finds herself under the spray to help him stay upright. 

Hot water splashes over her face and into her mouth when she starts to swear. “Goddamn it, Vidal,” she snaps, voice loud enough that he flinches away from her. “I told you not to shower and now I have to keep your ass from fucking drowning. Hold still.” She releases him, glaring, and pushes wet hair off of her forehead. “Sit down or something and let me wash your hair.”

His face crinkles in confusion but he obeys, sinking down the side of the little stall until he’s sitting with his knees against his chest on the floor. 

Avery grabs the showerhead and wets his hair, watching as he bends his head and sighs. His hands are still shaking, she notices, and that little fact melts away her flare of anger.

“I used to do this for my mom,” she comments, replacing the showerhead and grabbing a bottle of shampoo. She sniffs it curiously and smiles when she recognizes his usual scent. “When she was sick, I mean, she couldn’t do this for herself.” She massages the shampoo into Reyes’ hair, working up a good lather before rinsing it out.

It’s only then, watching the suds run down his bare back, that she realizes his shoulders are shaking too. 

His tears are silent, hidden by his bowed head, but she can hear them in his shuddering breaths and feel it when she runs soapy hands over his broad back in soothing motions, bending at the waist to avoid bending her bad knee.

“Reyes?” She squeezes one of his shoulders and he hunches them more, putting both of his hands on the back of his head as he gasps for breath. “Reyes, don’t-- it’s okay.” She shuts the water off and hastily wraps a towel around him before tugging him out of the stall and up to his feet.

This time, she’s prepared to catch him when he slips, propping herself against the wall to support his weight until he regains control of his feet. He mutters a quiet thanks, and she carefully avoids looking down at his body as they make their way across his apartment to his bed.

They sit on it together, collapsing back with twin grunts. Avery extracts herself before he can get comfortable, springing away from his naked body much faster than she would under any other circumstances to rifle through the built-in drawers to find something for him to wear.

When she turns back around, shirt in hand, he’s sitting up at the edge of the mattress with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. Her eyes dip down of their own accord, and her cheeks burn even brighter than before. This is  _ not  _ how she imagined seeing him naked for the first time.

“I should have known,” he says finally, voice sounding surprisingly steady even as he refuses to look up at her. “I should have known she would do something like this.

“Reyes, how could you have--”

“She didn’t love me,” he continues, like Avery never spoke at all. “She couldn’t -- I always had terrible taste in women.” He pauses again and rubs at his eyes, hard, then abruptly sits up straight, fisting his hands on his knees. Avery involuntarily leans back, clutching his clothes to her wet shirt, as he continues: “I do  _ so much  _ for the people of Kadara. I keep them safe, I keep them  _ fed _ , I keep fucking Sloane off their backs, I--”

He cuts himself off and stares at Avery, eyes wide around dilated pupils. “I’m going to kill her.”

“Oh, well, maybe Keema--”

“No, Keema knows what to do. She’ll find Zia and leave her to me.” Reyes’ face is hard, determined, even with tears still drying on his cheeks.

Avery takes a deep breath and then holds it as a chill runs down her spine. This isn’t drunken bluster coming from Reyes. This isn’t just some disgruntled ex wanting revenge.

This is a threat coming from a man who can back it up.

It’s a threat from the Charlatan himself.

“I think,” Avery squeaks, then stops to clear her throat. When she speaks again, her voice is at a normal pitch even if her hands are suddenly shaking. “I think you need more water? Uhh, and then you need to sleep off whatever this is.” She thrusts his clothes at him, dropping them in his lap and finally giving him some of his modesty back. He looks down at the fabric as though he’s not sure what it’s for, and then Avery turns and shuffles back to his kitchen.

She leans against the sink and lowers her head, groaning silently. Unless Reyes is talking out of his ass -- which is a possibility, given his situation, but it’s more likely that he forgot to keep his secret under the influence of Zia’s drugs -- he’s  _ the fucking Charlatan. _

He keeps Kadara safe? He keeps the people fed? That soup kitchen, the one Avery visits several times a week, is a  _ Collective  _ operation. It’s funded by the Charlatan.

It’s funded by  _ Reyes _ , the man who was just drugged and robbed and left heartbroken by his girlfriend. The man so messed up that he cried on the floor of his shower as Avery washed his hair for him because he couldn’t do it himself. The man sitting naked in his bed  _ right now  _ waiting for her to bring him water.

She gets another cup down and fills it before shuffling back to his room. Her freakout can wait. He needs her right now -- even if this is so far from the idea of a naked, needy Reyes that’s kept her warm on a few lonely nights -- and she won’t let him down.

He’s under the sheets when she finds him, though the clothes she set out are in a heap on the floor. He doesn’t move when she puts the cup on the little table by his bed, but when she smooths a lock of wet hair off of his forehead, he opens one eye to peer up at her.

“You need to drink more water or you’ll feel like shit tomorrow,” she whispers.

“Already feel like shit,” he informs her, voice now slurred with sleep as well as the drink. “Thank you, Avery. You’re… too good for someone like me.”

“Oh…” The admission makes her hesitate for the hundredth time since she got Keema’s message. She makes up for it by running her fingers through his hair again, working out a tangle, and he closes his eyes under her touch, arching into it like a cat. “You’re a better man than you think, Reyes.”

His lips twitch in the smallest of smiles before his body relaxes into sleep.

Avery slips away, grabbing the clean shirt from the floor as she moves. Once in the living area, she calls up her omnitool to see if she’s received any messages from Keema yet -- but she hasn’t.

She sends one instead.

_ > To: K. Dohrgun _ _   
_ _ > From: A. Rossi _

_ > Reyes is asleep, but I don’t want to leave him alone. He’s still pretty messed up. I’ll stay here until I hear from you. _

_ > AR _

She waits for another minute sitting in complete silence before she gives in. She removes her clothes, now soaking wet and smelling faintly of Reyes’ sweat and vomit, and pulls on his clean shirt. It smells like him, like his soap, and she gives into the temptation to bring the collar up to her face to inhale deeply. 

She grabs a spare blanket and stretches out on the couch, propping her knee up with one of the cushions, and stares up at the ceiling. The longer she can stay awake, the more likely it is that she’ll hear from Keema or Reyes if he gets sick again and needs her help.

He does need her help. And he does deserve someone better than Zia -- if Avery didn’t think so before (which she did), she certainly does now. All she can hope is that Keema finds his ship and can bring it back, so this whole night can be put behind him.

And maybe, just maybe, she and the Charlatan can get to know each other a little better now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zia's bullshit originally thought up by [HardPass](http://archiveofourown.org/users/HardPass/pseuds/HardPass), who graciously allowed me to use it in my own fic when I realized her handcanon from [Among Other Things](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10834593) had wormed its way into my outline.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And if you ever need someone  
> Well not that you need helping  
> But if you ever want someone  
> Know that I am willing  
> “I Don’t Want to Change You” by Damien Rice

His apartment lights are still on when Reyes opens his eyes, so he immediately squeezes them shut and shoves his face deeper into his pillow. Pain radiates around his skull, only increased by the brightness of the light around him and he grits his teeth against it even though he knows that will only make it worse.

As the rest of his senses return to him, he becomes aware of a few more things. One of his elbows is sore, and so is his hip. His stomach is sour, his throat hurts, and his mouth--

Okay, first he needs a plan. Most importantly, he needs to use the bathroom. Then, he needs to drink some water and then some coffee and, if he can, eat something. After that, he’ll need to check his messages and figure out what needs to be done with the Collective today and who to follow up with.

He pushes himself up with his arms, eyes still tightly closed, and forces himself to sit at the edge of the bed. The room swirls around him once before it settles, and that’s when he finally opens his eyes to face both the day before him and his hangover from an evening that was apparently  _ so fun _ he can’t recall the details.

That’s when he sees the first sign something’s wrong: a pair of rumpled boxer-briefs sitting in the middle of his bedroom floor. He stares at them, trying to remember how they got there or  _ why  _ they’re there, but… nothing. His memory is a black hole that hurts when he pokes at it.

Deciding they’re a mystery that can be solved later, he scoops them up and pulls them on as he walks around the little divider into the main room of his apartment.

That’s where he gets his second, much more obvious, clue that something’s wrong. Sprawled out on his couch, wearing one of his shirts, her mouth open and short hair sticking out at strange angles, is  _ Avery Ryder.  _ She snores softly with each breath, completely immobile with one arm stretched above her head and over the arm of his couch, the other draped down to the floor. She even has one of his blankets over her, though it’s low on her waist now, exposing a line of pale skin on her stomach.

“You’ve certainly made yourself at home,” he says, placing his hands on his hips and cocking his head to the side.

Avery jumps at his words, trying to sit straight up and move back at the same time, only succeeding in falling onto the floor. Her leg hits the low table with a dull thud, and she hisses in pain, doubling over the joint and clutching it to her chest.

She glares at him when she starts to recover, eyes watering, and uncurls herself to stand. She leans heavily on her good leg, and his eyes drop to her bare knees. The bad one is already bruised and swollen -- no wonder the little bump hurt her.

She scoops up her shorts while he’s staring at her and carefully steps into them. “Glad to see you’re feeling better, Vidal.”

His eyes snap back up to her face. Her jaw is set, her scars standing out bright against her skin, her eyes… angry. She only uses his last name when she’s annoyed about something. Why… “What are you doing here?”

Pants fastened, she stands upright again and squares her shoulders. Still leaning to the side, she mimics his posture by putting her hands on her hips before answering his question. “I wanted to make sure you didn’t die in the middle of the night. You’re welcome, by the way.”

She pauses, eyes dipping down to his bare chest, then lower. When she looks back up at his face barely a second later, her cheekbones are dusted with pink and she makes a little noise of disgust in the back of her throat. “Put this on.” She tugs his shirt off over her head and tosses it to him, and he catches it right before it slaps him in the face. “Do you have coffee here? I think we both need a cup.”

She falls silent as she pulls her own shirt back on, grimacing a little as she does. Reyes watches her until she looks back up at him, then pulls his shirt on over her head. He stays silent as she limps into his kitchen and busies herself snooping through his cupboards to find the supplies she needs to make coffee.

“What happened to your knee? I thought it healed.” Reyes watches Avery with sharp eyes, his trip to the bathroom canceled in the face of this new information. His right hand twitches toward his left wrist even though his omnitool isn’t there, it’s -- where is it? Usually on his table, but…

“You sat on it.”

“I  _ sat  _ on it?” Of all the answers she could have given…

The cupboard door slams shut. “Really, you fell on it. In the bathroom. When you were so drugged off your ass you couldn’t stand up without me helping you?” Every move she makes in the kitchen is as loud as possible, making his headache steadily stronger. “This was before you wanted to shower, fell down in there, and then cried while I washed your hair for you.”

Not one word she’s saying is making any sense or ringing any bells except… “ _ Zia _ .”

The name of his… of his ex?  _ Zia’s _ name drops from his lips on a growl as fury fills him. He remembers going to Umi’s with her. He remembers laughing and having a good time and drinking together. She’d bought the last round and brought it to him, but she must have put something into it because her smirking face is the last thing he remembers.

Avery is frozen in the kitchen with an energy bar half-unwrapped, the edge of the torn wrapper still between her teeth. Reyes’ sharpens his gaze and waits as her eyes widen and her cheeks pale under his scrutiny.

Finally, she pulls the wrapper out of her mouth and blinks at him. “What?”

“Where is she?” Avery opens her mouth to respond but no sound comes out, so Reyes hardens his gaze even further. “Where is Zia?”

“Keema went to look for her?” He’s making her nervous now, not angry, and she’s not hiding it well. Her voice is too high and her hands are shaking when she puts the energy bar down to switch to preparing two mugs of coffee. She spills some hot water on the counter and mutters a curse. 

Reyes waits, silent, and folds his arms across his chest until she starts talking again.

“She wanted to track Zia down before she got too far away in your ship, but she didn’t want you to be alone, and you  _ shouldn’t  _ have been alone, you were a mess, but I haven’t heard from her yet so I guess she’s still looking for her, and I guess--” Avery cuts herself off suddenly, squeezing her eyes closed for a moment as she takes a long, deep breath.

Calming herself down to face the situation.  _ Good girl. _

“Your omnitool is probably in the bathroom with your clothes from last night,” she says, her voice now back to its normal register, meeting his gaze and lifting her chin. “I’ll see if I can get Keema on a call.” She picks up one of the two cups of coffee and puts it on the other side of the counter, the one that’s closer to him. Her hands are still shaking, but there’s no more nervousness in her face. She’s come to a decision about… something.

He follows her directions without speaking, going to retrieve his omnitool as she calls Keema from the kitchen. The bathroom tells the same story that Avery did -- his clothes are inside out in a pile on the floor, smelling strongly enough of the previous night that he has to swallow hard against getting sick like he apparently already had been before falling asleep. A damp towel is on the floor by the little stall shower, and he spreads it out over the shower rail to dry properly.

His omnitool is sitting in the sink, and he pulls it out before looking at himself in the mirror. His skin is pale and oily, the shadows under his eyes deeper than usual, his hair dried in harsh waves and sticking straight up on one side from sleeping on it while wet. 

Well.

He washes his face, cleans his teeth, wets his hair, and drinks water right out of the tap before pulling up the messages he received overnight. Most are from his Collective agents, filtered through dummy accounts and encrypted before they arrived in his personal account, and he skips those for now. 

He finds a message from Zia first, the timestamp in the middle of the night, and he opens it with a growl building at the back of his throat.

_ > To: R. Vidal _ _   
_ _ > From: Z. Cordier _

_ > Thanks for the ship babe _ _   
_ _ > xx _

“That fucking--” he cuts off the tirade he feels building as he hears Avery start talking from the kitchen. Nearly trembling with anger, Reyes joins her to hear her conversation.

“--furious. Have you found her yet? I’d like to give him good news before he explodes.” Avery is turned away from him, leaning against the counter -- probably to rest the knee he re-injured last night, and the realization makes guilt coil in his stomach -- with her coffee cup in one hand and her omnitool raised with the other so she can see Keema’s face.

“ _ I lost her as she was leaving the system. _ ” Keema’s voice is tinny as it comes through Avery’s speakers, but it’s clear she’s nearly as furious as Reyes is, though more exhausted. “ _ I suspect she’s heading to Elaaden. I reached out to my contacts there, but they haven’t seen anything yet. Reyes will have more people he can speak with. _ ”

“Where are you now?” Avery asks Reyes’ next question, glancing over her shoulder when she hears him walking up behind her. She grins, just a bit, and he sits at one of his stools to drink his still-steaming mug of coffee. 

“ _ I just docked at the Port a few minutes ago. I can meet you at Reyes’ apartment in a few minutes. _ ”

Avery looks at Reyes again, eyebrows raised, question clear on her face. Does he want Keema to join them?

_ No. _

He shakes his head at her.

“I think we’re okay, Keema, thank you. I’ll see you some other time.”

“ _ Very well _ ,” says Keema’s voice, and unless Reyes is mistaken -- which he usually isn’t -- she’s mad that he isn’t welcoming her back to his apartment. He can catch up with her later. Avery doesn’t need to see him as the Charlatan, not right now, and probably not ever.

She still flinches when he startles her. She doesn’t need to know what he does when they’re not together.

Avery tells Keema goodbye and ends the connection. She doesn’t turn around right away, even though Reyes is standing behind her. Instead, she sighs heavily and takes a moment to drink her coffee, apparently ignoring the heat in favor of getting caffeine in her system.

Deciding to give her another moment, Reyes moves back to the bedroom and pulls on his flight suit -- carefully folded in his drawers, where it belongs -- tucks the gloves into his pockets, and grabs the little tin of medigel he keeps in the drawer by his bed.

When he gets back to the kitchen, Avery is already starting to limp away. She freezes when he reappears fully dressed, but she smiles softly instead of giving him her typical wide-eyed look of panic when he surprises her. He finds himself smiling back before he holds the medigel up to signal his intentions to thank her for helping him the night before.

The black hole of his memory and the ache in his head are all the hints he needs that he shouldn’t have been by himself last night. If he’d decided to take a shower alone -- it’s bad enough that he did that when Avery was there to help -- but alone, he could have slipped and seriously injured himself, or worse.

Avery reaches out for the container, but Reyes kneels before her instead, prying off the lid as he moves. He glances up for permission and resists the smile that bubbles up when he sees her face turning pink. She presses her lips together and leans against the counter behind her so she can offer her knee to him.

He scoops out some of the ointment with two fingers and, with just the barest amount of pressure, begins to spread it over her bruise. He works diligently, with precise movements, fingertips massaging the medigel into the injury that he caused.

When he’s done, he looks up at Avery. She’s staring back at him, lips now slightly parted, her blush already spread down to the collar of her shirt.

“There,” he says, standing back up and replacing the lid on the gel. “Better?” He makes sure not to smile at her reaction to his touch, filing away the information  _ and  _ the strange warmth it brings out in his chest even in the midst of everything else.

Avery licks her lips and swallows hard before she’s able to move. She tests her weight on her bad leg, then flashes Reyes a smile. “Yeah, actually. Thanks.”

He nods. “Thank you for staying last night,” he says, voice low, allowing his face to show his seriousness, his gratefulness. It must, because Avery’s smile returns and stays on her lips. “Right now, though--”

The smile falls. “Yeah, I know. You need to find Zia and, ah, take care of things.” Her face twists into a grimace, but she doesn’t say anything else. 

His heart stops as he realizes  _ she knows.  _ She knows the extent of his anger, the extent of his ability to  _ follow through _ on that anger.

That anger simmers just under the surface now, easy to put away only to pull back out when the time is right. Last night, though…

The grimace disappears before he has time to mention it, and then Avery is pushing past him to leave. Her energy bar is half-eaten on the counter beside him, but she doesn’t try to take it with her.

“Stay safe,” she offers, barely glancing over her shoulder as she pauses to slip her feet into unlaced boots waiting by his in front of his door. And then she’s gone, the pneumatic hiss of the apartment doors sealing him in alone.

He doesn’t allow himself to dwell.

He pulls Keema’s contact information up as soon as Avery is out of earshot. It rings once before Keema answers, filling the little vid screen with her wide eyes.

“I thought you would call,” she says. “Meet me at Umi’s. I have news for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little housekeeping announcement: I am going to SKIP next week's regular update. There are two reasons for this: one, because I'm only 1/3 of the way done with that chapter (where did my four chapter buffer go???) and I want to be sure to have time to finish it up properly; two, because I'm going to participate in [Leather & Lace Week 2018](http://vorchagirl.tumblr.com/post/169617901606/leather-lace-romance-week) which takes place next week, and I need to focus on those prompts as well.
> 
> BUT, don't worry, next Wednesday is Valentine's Day! Avery and Reyes are getting a one-shot on that day for L&L Week, so you won't have to miss them. Just watch [my tumblr](http://ma-sulevin.tumblr.com/) for the updates that day :)
> 
> Regular posting will resume on 2/21.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have gone beyond my years  
> I've wasted half my life  
> But I found it all in you  
> Did I save you?  
> 'Cause I know you saved me too  
> “Song #3” by Stone Sour

Zia hasn’t been back to the port or the slums since she stole Reyes’ ship. It’s for the best, really, what with all of Reyes’ friends wanting her dead. Even Avery, loathe as she is to commit more violence, feels that same surge of anger when she remembers how ill and upset Reyes was. 

The man himself doesn’t mention Zia again, not to Avery at least. Instead, he turns inward. Every time Avery sees him, his jaw is tight and his eyes are hard, and there’s always a drink in his hand.  _ Always. _

Even when Avery finds information about a big operation Sloane’s people are planning out in the Badlands, Reyes doesn’t seem that excited. Avery takes the opportunity to see him, loading up the information on a secure datapad before carrying it down to Tartarus, but he just skims over the information with his disinterested gaze and places the datapad with others on his table-turned-desk.

Like the man can’t afford to have a real desk brought in.

She hovers after she gives him the information, fingers twisted together, tongue-tied, desperately wanting to stay and make sure Reyes is okay but not knowing how to broach the subject. 

When she doesn’t leave, Reyes turns his hard eyes back to her and waits, silent, for her to speak. A dark flush crawls up from her collar and consumes her face, tying her tongue for an embarrassing moment.

He seems to lose patience before she finds her voice. “If that’s everything…”

Avery’s face falls and she tucks her hands into her pockets to hide their gentle shaking. “Yeah. I’ll see you later, I guess.”

Reyes’ attention is already focused back on the terminal in front of him. Avery hovers for just another moment before spinning on her heel and walking back out into the main part of Tartarus with her chin tucked nearly to her chest.

Her feet lead her down to the bar before she makes a conscious decision to get a drink, and Kian’s there with her usual order before she says anything.

“What’s wrong, love?” His voice is surprisingly gentle, pitched perfectly to be heard under the club music that’s suddenly so grating to her ears.

She blinks up at him dumbly for a minute, tapping her fingers against her cup. Her short fingernails make a dull ringing noise against the metal, and finally she realizes Kian’s question enough to answer it: “Oh. Reyes.”

Kian’s eyes dart up to the door of Reyes’ room, and his lips twist into a grimace before he looks back at her. “He's been in a state since Zia.”

Avery scoffs. “Yeah. He's being an asshole.”

“Is he, now?” Kian’s eyebrows are arched in genuine curiosity, so Avery takes a moment to consider how she would really explain the change in Reyes’ personality since the Zia Incident.

It’s not so much that he’s being an asshole. He’s just… not being as _nice_. He doesn’t have the time for her now and that… that hurts more than she’d like to admit.

Aloud, she says, “Yes,” and then throws her head back to down her drink in three long swallows.

Kian is still staring at her when she lowers the cup back to the bar, not even pretending to be working, and she just wipes her lips with the back of her hand. His eyebrows are still lifted, lips lightly pursed like he’s holding back words he shouldn’t say or she doesn’t want to hear. She’s not in a mood to figure out which.

She pushes the cup back to him, and he takes it without looking down. “Thanks, babe. Put it on Reyes’ tab, please.” She flashes him a wide grin and turns to go back to her own apartment before he can argue.

\---

The moment the door slides closed behind Avery’s retreating form, Reyes lowers his face into his hands with a silent groan. He saw the question in her eyes when she looked at him, the concern, the fucking  _ worry _ that clouded her features, and he chose to ignore it, intent on letting some space grow between them after everything.

Except that just shifted her expression from worry to hurt and then to annoyance, all flickering through those green eyes until she turned away completely to leave.

His omnitool pings with a message, and he draws it up, still seeing her frustration dance in front of his eyes.

_ > To: R. Vidal _ _  
_ _ > From: K. Dagher _

_ > If you’re going to insist on being a shit, you’re going to be paying for a lot more of A’s drinks. _ _  
_ _ > She stuck you with her tab. _

Reyes grinds his teeth together for a moment, considering the message and the implications. Avery had been upset, had told Kian about it, and… what, Kian is now sticking up for Avery? That thought actually makes Reyes relax slightly, a small smile playing at his lips now that no one can see him.

It’s good for her to have people other than Collective agents to look out for her, people she knows she can trust and turn to when --  _ if  _ \-- things turn bad. People who  _ don’t  _ have a secret identity that would make them targets for Sloane’s wrath if it ever came to light.

_ > To: K. Dagher _ _  
_ _ > From: R. Vidal _

_ > That’s fine. Put it on mine and I’ll settle it. _

It’s the least he could do. He never properly thanked her for her help after… after Zia. Anger flares in him as he thinks about what he did, how she played him so completely that he hadn’t even seen it coming until he was collapsed on his bathroom floor.

His omnitool pings again, and this message makes him snort with amusement.

_ > To: R. Vidal _ _  
_ _ > From: K. Dagher _

_ > Already did. Wasn’t asking permission. _ _  
_ _ > Removing your head from your ass would be cheaper. _

Kian’s not wrong, and as usual he’s not afraid to tell Reyes what he thinks. The man’s a good friend and a damn good bartender and perhaps, just this once, Reyes should listen to what he’s not-so-subtly saying.

Avery is a good friend too, mostly trustworthy, and clearly loyal to a fault. She doesn’t deserve his cold shoulder, much as his hurt pride, lingering anger towards Zia, and desire to keep her safe from him want him to avoid her.

Eyes closed, he again pictures Avery’s face when she realized he was dismissing her, uninterested in her company, and a coil of guilt builds in his chest. He considers ignoring it like he did when she was actually standing in front of him, but that just makes it grow stronger, somehow, under the threat of burial.

He rasps his palm over his cheek again and sighs. He’ll need a plan.

\---

Avery is surprised out of a doze by a sharp knock on her door. She jerks awake, sitting up straight on the couch like she’ll get in trouble for napping at work -- nevermind that her work ended hours ago -- and the datapad resting against her chest falls to the floor with a little clatter. 

She rubs at her eyes, confused, but jumps to action when she hears the knock on her door repeat itself.

She drags herself across the room and checks the identity of her visitor on her omnitool before opening the door. Reyes stands before her, a slight grin on his face and his hands full of --

“Is that for me?” She points at the box in his hands, too excited by the smell of whatever food he’s brought to her door to wonder  _ why  _ he’s here or what game he’s playing.

Her enthusiasm makes his grin grow into a real smile, and he offers the box to her with both hands. “A peace offering,” he says, hovering at the entrance to her apartment even as she takes the food and turns to carry it into the kitchen. 

She glances over her shoulder at him, a little frown wrinkling the skin between her eyebrows. “A peace offering for what? Come inside; you’re letting out the cold.” The echo of words her parents said to her dozens of times makes her grimace, but she’s quickly distracted by the promise of a real dinner.

Reyes follows her, obedient, eyes soft as he watches her pick up one of the individually wrapped meals tucked inside the box. The door slides shut behind him, locking automatically, and he helps himself to two cups from one of her cupboards for the second part of his peace offering.

“ _ Reyes _ .” Her voice is light, breathless, a tone he’s never heard from her before. He turns to look at her, eyebrows raised, hands frozen where they were about to remove the cap to the whiskey he brought to complete their meal. She looks up from the unwrapped food, eyes wide, and says, “Is this a real hamburger?”

He catches the laugh in his throat before it can bubble free. “Mostly,” he answers. “There’s a little restaurant up in the marketplace now. They’re delicious.” 

He pours their drinks and slides one to her, but she’s too focused on the burger to even acknowledge him. Her first bite -- larger than the one he had taken his first time, more trusting of his recommendation than he ever was of someone else’s -- makes her moan and close her eyes, tipping her head back as she enjoys the flavors.

“Oh my  _ god _ ,” she says, voice muffled and mouth still full. “This is  _ amazing _ . I love you.” She flashes him a grin, showing that her casual affection is for  _ him  _ rather than the food in his hands, and his heart gives a traitorous lurch in his chest when she turns away, blushing, to carry her food to the couch.

Her dinner is halfway gone by the time he shakes himself and joins her, two cups in one hand and his food in the other. She has her bare feet tucked up under her, the bruises on her knee already healed and gone, but he’s still careful as he sits down next to her.

She flashes him a grin, still focused on her food, and lifts her chin in thanks when he puts her drink in front of her once more. 

She finally pulls herself away from eating long enough to ask, “What did you do?”

Even knowing the meaning behind her question, Reyes takes a sip of his whiskey to clear his throat before saying, “What did I do?”

“You called this,” she holds the burger up and waves it a little, “a peace offering. What did you do? Are you here to fire me?” She grins like it’s a joke, but her eyes darken at the question like she’s just realized it’s a real possibility.

“No, no,” Reyes chuckles lowly, taking another drink before he answers, this one to calm his nerves that are suddenly clamoring at him. “I've been… rude. You don’t deserve that.”

Avery’s mouth hangs slightly open, yet another blush staining her cheeks for a moment before she shakes her head. “You haven’t--”

“I have,” he interrupts, “and I wanted to apologize.” He nods at the empty wrapper now clutched in her fingers, and this time when she smiles at him, the corners of her eyes crinkle.

She shrugs at him, ducking her head before looking back up. “Okay, well. In that case. Apology accepted. I’m easily bribed with food, so you picked the right thing.” She hesitates again, biting at her lip before she seems to come to some kind of decision. “Do you want to stay for a bit and watch a vid? Or do you have to go… work some more.” She wiggles her fingers in the direction of his omnitool, making him smile once again.

“I don’t have any plans for tonight, no,” he says, looking at her with soft eyes. “You have vids?”

This makes her face light up. “Keema sent me one that I haven’t had a chance to watch yet. It’s old, but she said it’s good. Hold on, let me just…” Avery hops to her feet, leaving her trash on the table, and half-jogs to her bedroom while fiddling with her omnitool.

Reyes makes himself at home while she’s gone, scooping up her trash and his and disposing of it before slipping off his boots and leaving them by the door. He’s just settling back on the couch when Avery returns, a rumpled blanket in her arms, to settle back beside him.

She sits with her back to the opposite arm of the couch, legs stretched between them, and throws the blanket over them both. It lands partially in Reyes’ lap, and he adjusts it so that it covers her feet but not his legs as she calls up the vid to play on the terminal he installed for her.

They sit in companionable silence, sipping on their drinks, as the drama plays out on screen. It’s centered on angara defending their daar from invading kett -- and wouldn’t they want to watch something to  _ distract  _ from their plight, not to remind them of what they’ve been going through for decades? -- focusing on what’s shaping up to be a romance between the main characters.

Reyes keeps Avery’s drink full, and after a time shifts on the couch to face Avery more directly, stretching out his legs under the low table in front of the couch. He rests his hand on the blanket covering her feet, absentmindedly rubbing her ankle through the fabric with his thumb.

Sometime just before the climax of the movie, Reyes turns to ask Avery if she thinks the hero, a rather dashing-looking purple angara, is going to end up with the sweet pilot, a pinkish female, or with his friendly rival, a blue-green male, or even both -- but she’s asleep, cheek resting against the back of the couch like she’d drifted off looking at him.

“Avery.” His voice is too quiet to wake her, and he doesn’t really want to, but her position is going to give her a sore neck or back by the time she wakes up at the end of the movie. He shakes her ankle a little to get her attention, and her whole body flinches as she comes to. “You should go to bed.”

She opens one eye and glares at him. “No thanks.” Her eye drops closed again and she snuggles closer to the cushion. “ ‘m fine.”

He sighs at her but quickly gives up, deciding instead to let her rest and just go back to his apartment before the warmth in his chest grows any more out of control than it already has. He shouldn’t have accepted her invitation to stay, but she looked so  _ hopeful  _ when she asked, and he had come to make up after -- as Kian described it -- having his head up his ass after Zia.

He vividly remembers the fear in her eyes the next morning, even if he hasn’t seen it since. It’s there, somewhere inside of her, the knowledge that he’s dangerous. That he isn’t good for her.

That he’s not good  _ enough  _ for her.

He banishes that thought too before it can linger, shoving it the way of the warmth in his chest. It doesn’t matter. That’s not what’s happening here. 

He shakes his head as he pulls his boots back on, lacing them with steady fingers even as his thoughts swirl in his head, and turns the lights off in her apartment as he hovers by the door.

Across the room, over by her bed, a soft light clicks on in response to the overhead lights extinguishing. His lips twitch in a small smile at the nightlight, his heart lurching once more before he clamps down on the swell of affection when he realizes she’s afraid of the dark.

He makes sure the door locks behind him, barely sparing a glance for the Collective agent sitting down the row of apartments from Avery’s door, unobtrusively keeping an eye on it to make sure Sloane’s people don’t come sniffing around.

Avery is as safe as she can be on Kadara. The only place she would be safer is back on the Nexus, but even if they decided to welcome the exiles back with open arms… he’s not sure he would be able to watch her leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PS - as I was writing, I realized that hamburger scene is very similar to the reaction I had on my honeymoon when I had the most delicious burger I've ever had in my life. My husband still says that's the happiest I looked that whole trip.
> 
> PPS - all three angara survive their big battle and start up a poly relationship.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want me  
> Let me know  
> Where do you wanna go?  
> “Stars” by The xx

Lured by the promise of real food and a dozen reassurances from Keema that there are no “Wanted: Dead or Alive” posters with her face on them hanging up around the marketplace or in Sloane’s headquarters, Avery makes her way up the lift to the top side of Kadara Port to see the little restaurant Reyes told her about.

No one even glances at her sideways as she walks, hands tucked into her pockets, through the milling crowd. It seems busier than it was last time she was up here, but that was months ago at this point. Maybe more people have left the Nexus? Or more people have moved here from the other exile colony on the desert planet.

Or maybe she just forgot what it’s like to be in a crowd.

The restaurant is set up cafe-style, with a few small tables scattered in the front and a line stretching almost back out into the eddying foot traffic. Avery elbows her way to the back and pulls up her omnitool to give her something to do that also lets her keep her face down and turned away from everyone else.

She scrolls through old messages, looking for anything interesting, then checks to see what she needs to do for the Collective when she gets her food and goes back to her little apartment. Her bangs have grown long enough now that they fall across her eyes, shielding them from anyone’s attention. She ignores the brown that she hasn’t seen in years and the way it feels when the ends brush across the scar tissue on her cheekbone, focusing on the glowing orange interface in front of her.

“I  _ know _ , but that’s what he said!” The conversation of a couple ahead of Avery piques her interest, and she tilts her head to hear better while still pretending to look at her omnitool. 

“How would  _ he  _ know if an ark made it to the Nexus?” The shorter woman has her hands on her hips, disbelief absolutely dripping from her voice. “He doesn’t ever go off-planet.”

“He said that turian friend of his told him an ark docked last week. I don’t know which one.”

“You don’t know which turian friend or which ark?”

An exasperated sigh. “Which  _ ark _ . It was that turian with the white face markings, you know.” Avery glances up in time to see the woman using both pinkies to indicate where the face markings are, apparently covering much of the mystery turian’s forehead and cheeks. “Maybe it’s the Hyperion. If anyone can whip Tann and Addison into shape, it’ll be Alec Ryder.”

“Did you  _ see  _ him in those videos?” The other woman’s voice drops into a tone that makes Avery’s lip curl instinctively. “ _ Hnng.  _ Think he’s single?”

“I think he had a wife who died a while ago?” A pause as Avery tries to blink back the tears that spring to her eyes at the sudden reminder. “As far as I know, he doesn’t have anyone. I don’t know why he’d look twice at  _ you _ though.”

“Oh, don’t be a bitch.”

Appetite suddenly gone and throat tight, Avery dips out of the line and keeps her head down as she speed walks back to the lift. Once inside and safely tucked into the corner, she ignores the other passengers and pulls her omnitool back up to message Reyes.

His response is fast, faster than she expected, and she grins through stinging eyes. He’s in Tartarus (“in his office,” as he says) with a glass of whiskey already ready for her. The thoughtfulness, or maybe just the willingness to support her growing whiskey habit, makes her start to tear up again, throat burning. She rubs at her eyes with the heels of both hands, willing it to go away before she reaches Tartarus, but the emotions are still constricting her chest when she steps off of the shuddering lift.

She counts her breaths as she walks across the slums and into Reyes’ room, but it takes him exactly one glance at her face to realize she’s not here on a strictly social call. He stands, dropping his datapad on the table, and narrows his eyes at her.

“What’s wrong?”

She freezes just inside his door, blinking dumbly, and then flops onto the couch across from him. He sits back down too, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, and waits in silence as she picks at her fingernails.

“So, I went to that cafe you told me about, the one with the hamburger-thing -- do  _ not _ make that face at me, Vidal.”

He spreads his hands and rearranges his features from an amused smirk to an aggressively innocent expression. “This is just how my face looks.”

Avery rolls her eyes but can’t help the little smile that tugs at her lips. “The food is  _ good _ , okay? And look, I can do this again.” She reaches a hand toward him, fingers bent and palm pointed at his chest, and activates her biotics. He’s immediately encased in a soft blue glow that lifts him from the couch as she rotates her wrist, just an inch or two, before lowering him back down. “See? Handy.”

He blinks at her, expression inscrutable, and arches a brow. “Yes, I can see how that would be useful.” She flashes him a grin, and he huffs out a breath before speaking again. “So you were eating -- or are you upset because they ran out of food for you?” His smile is lopsided, but she doesn’t return it.

Instead, her eyes pinch and she grimaces. “No… actually, I didn’t get to eat anything. I was in line, and, uh…” She squints up at the ceiling and clears her throat before continuing. “The people in front of me thought that the Hyperion might have docked on the Nexus.”

Looking up as she is, she misses the way Reyes’ jaw tightens at her words. He waits out the pause, like he always does, letting her fill the silence with whatever else she’s trying not to say. She clears her throat and looks back at him after a second, eyes going red at the rims as she struggles to hold back her emotions.

“I just… what if it’s true, Reyes? What if they finally made it? I thought… I thought they were  _ dead _ .” She wipes at her nose with the back of her hand before sitting up straight, firmly holding back her tears.

Reyes links his fingers together between his knees. “You’re upset at the idea that your family might have made it to Heleus?”

“Uh… no.” She bites back another wave of tears as the rest of the women’s conversation comes to mind. “Not really. I’d love to see them again, even if… It’s that they were talking about how hot Alec is and how he’s a widower so he’s  _ available.  _ It just… made me think of mom.”

Reyes makes a quiet noise of understanding in his throat and switches to sit next to her, wrapping one firm arm around her shoulders. She melts against him, resting her head on his shoulder, letting herself be comforted as he wraps his other arm around her too. He presses a light kiss to the top of her head and that nearly breaks her; the ache in her chest deepens until it’s almost overwhelming.

“Have you… heard anything?” Her voice is weak, squeaky, and he squeezes her tighter for a moment. “I know you, uh. Have friends.”

He does, indeed, have friends. He has friends on Elaaden and on the Nexus, even, though it’s hard to speak with them with the scourge blocking the way. He’s heard rumors, too, though nothing concrete enough to share with her yet, and he tells her as much, whispering into her hair.

“You’ll tell me if you hear anything?” She resists the urge to burrow closer, to bury her face in his neck and breathe in the scent of his fancy soap and hair gel. As the impulse grows, she forces herself to disentangle from him and wipe at her eyes without looking at him.

“Of course.” He nudges her shoulder with his own, making her sway away and then back into him. A little smile plays on her face as her cheeks darken at the contact between them, and he grins back at her. “You deserve to know just as much as I do. Now…” He draws the word out until she tilts her head to look up at him before he continues, “You didn’t eat lunch?”

“Um, no. I left before I could. The line was  _ really _ long.” She also didn’t want to start crying in the middle of the crowd and draw attention to herself. She was nervous enough being up there without all the extra scrutiny. “I’ll just grab something at home and go back later, I guess.”

Their eyes lock for a moment before Reyes speaks his mind. “I’ll make you a deal. I… will send out messages to my  _ friends _ \--” friends meaning contacts across Heleus-- “and you… will meet me for dinner tonight. I don’t want you to go without your favorite Kadara delicacy.”

Her lips part to tell Reyes that  _ he  _ is her favorite Kadara delicacy, but she literally bites her tongue to keep that thought in her head where it belongs (if it belongs anywhere). “Okay, but I’m buying.” When Reyes opens his mouth to argue, she cuts him off without letting him speak. “You bought last time and besides, what am I supposed to do with all this money the Collective is paying me? Save up to buy some beachfront property?” She jerks her head toward the Badlands and glows when Reyes rewards her sarcasm with a smile.

”Well, who am I to argue?” Reyes responds, and Avery laughs as she bumps his shoulder with hers again before she stands up.

“Yeah, who  _ are  _ you?” She grins at him, lifting and then lowering her brows in an almost-shrug before she tucks her hands back in her pockets and scuffs one boot on the floor. “I’ll see you tonight? Message me whenever you’re ready and I’ll meet you up there.”

“It’s a date,” Reyes says, and Avery nods and turns away before he sees her blush.

\---

Reyes makes sure he can get a table at the little cafe before messaging Avery. He doesn’t want her to have to wait, not after the afternoon she’s had, so he orders something he knows she’ll like -- paying in advance for  _ excellent  _ service, despite her earlier protests that she would get dinner -- and settles down before messaging her.

She still arrives before the food, but the smile she offers him when she sees him waiting at the table -- in casual clothes rather than his regular flight suit for once -- is worth the hassle.

He stands to pull her chair out for her and is rewarded with yet another delightful blush staining her cheeks. 

“You’re sure this is okay?” she asks, leaning in and lowering her voice to make sure he can hear but no one else can. “Just sitting out here?”

“Are you worried?” Reyes lowers his voice to match hers, leaning in too so she can hear him. This close, up in the topside of Kadara, her eyes seem to glow in the sunlight that he never gets to see touch her skin, and he lets his eyes roam unabashedly over her face.

She props her elbow on the little table and rests her chin in her hand so that her fingers can curl up and over her scar, mostly hiding it from his view. She’s still self-conscious about it, even if she never mentions it. 

“What if someone recognizes me?” She presses her lips together, drawing Reyes’ gaze to them, but when he looks back up at her eyes she’s looking away, at the crowd behind him in the cafe. “I have a good thing going on in the slums. I don’t want to risk it for a burger, no matter how good it is.”

The grin she flashes at him lets her know she’s being a little silly even if her worry is very real. He looks down at her free hand resting on the tabletop, index finger quietly tapping out a rhythm, and considers taking her fingers in his.

After half a moment, he compromises with himself. He reaches out and squeezes those fingers in reassurance before releasing her immediately, ignoring both the warmth in his chest and the warmth on her face at his touch.

“Nothing I’ve heard shows that Sloane is actively looking for you still,” he says, voice even lower now. “You’ve been missing for months, and her last reports are of you out in the Badlands. You’re safe with me.” 

Avery’s eyes soften at his words, her shoulders relaxing a little. The fingers covering her scars curl slightly, exposing more of the reddened skin to his gaze. “Thanks, Reyes,” she says, and then he has the pleasure of seeing her whole face light up as her eyes spot something behind him.

He turns in time to see their food arriving and breathes out a chuckle. “I’ve never seen you look as happy as you do when there’s food.”

She tears her eyes away from the plates, though he can see it’s a struggle. “That’s because mealtime is the best part of my day.” She takes a deep swig of the drink he ordered for her -- similar to the one she orders from Kian, but not exactly the same if her little cough after she swallows is any indication -- as he thanks the waiter.

They chat amiably as they eat, Avery focusing on her food with a single-minded intensity that both amuses Reyes and makes him hope that’s the same level of attention she gives to her work for the Collective. Her tears from earlier in the day don’t reappear, even when he brings up the Hyperion once again, questioning what it would really mean for her if the rumors turn out to be true.

She might be getting drunk. She’s had three of the mixed drinks and, even with her biotic metabolism, it seems to be getting to her. Her cheeks are pink, and she reacts to his question with a little chuckle instead of drawing inward again.

“Well -- realistically, nothing will change. It’s not like I can, or even want to, go back to the Nexus. If Alec even  _ bothers _ to come to Kadara, he’ll just be furious that I’m an exile. He’ll just say I deserve what I got.” She rubs her scars with a knuckle absentmindedly and then stretches out her fingers like she’s remembering the ache that had persisted after her fight. “It’s not like I came to Andromeda to spend time with him anyway.”

“You don’t regret it?”

Avery withdraws her hand -- halfway across the table, angling at the last of his uneaten food -- at his question and tucks it in her lap. “Sometimes,” she answers, honestly, “but I couldn’t stay there with how they were. Even if I hadn’t, uh, been part of the original coup I would have left later.”

Reyes nods and pushes his plate across to her. She beams up at him and picks up one of the vegetables he’d pushed aside.

“What about you, then? Any family or friends on the Hyperion?” She’s asked him this before, back when they were still getting to know each other, and he gives her the same answer now that he did then.

“I came alone.” Signing up for the Initiative and traveling to Andromeda never felt  _ lonely,  _ not truly. He knew he would make something of himself, and he has, and he will continue to do so, but the way she’s staring at him makes him feel like he’s been lonely all along without noticing. “No one to miss.”

“Oh. You have me, Reyes.” She blinks once, slowly, and then a sudden blush blooms on her face, and she giggles. She _ is _ drunk _ ,  _ or at least very close _.  _ “And, um, the rest of us. Kian and Keema, and…” She trails off as she tries to come up with more names and distracts herself by swiping the last of his food. “Whoever you’re always messaging. That one waitress that always looks like she wants to eat you.”

Reyes knows  _ exactly  _ which waitress Avery means, and he chuckles while shaking his head. “Come on, Avery; let me walk you home.”

He stands easily, but she nearly kicks her chair over when she tries. She giggles a little, catching it, and turns a lovely shade of red when she looks up to see Reyes watching her. “Oops.”

“You’re a mess.” His accusation is fond -- he doesn’t usually get to see her like this, pink and giggling and a little unsteady on her feet.

“You’re the one who gave me drinks, Vidal.” She’ll be back to normal soon, he thinks, but until then he’s not going to tell her to stop leaning on him for support as he leads her across the marketplace to the lift.

She detaches from him as soon as they reach the elevator and presses herself back into one of the corners. He watches as she clutches the railing on either side of her and closes her eyes, swaying softly as the cart starts to move. “I really hate this thing.”

“Why?” He takes a step closer to her, drawn in by her confession and her change of mood. She opens her eyes when his fingers brush over her elbow.

“You try waking up in a malfunctioning stasis pod during a station-wide power loss and see how  _ you _ like small dark spaces afterwards.” She flinches as the cart rattles in its track, and Reyes acts without thinking, stepping closer and using the hand already on her arm to draw her into an embrace.

She folds against him, arms wrapping around his waist and hands fisting in his shirt as his smooth down her back, soothing away hurts he had nothing to do with. She tucks her head under his chin and presses close, letting the warmth of his skin and the hard lines of his body ground her as the booze and lift make her head spin.

The contraption rattles when it touches the ground, but neither of them move to release the other until Reyes presses a kiss to the top of her head and takes a step back. He keeps his hands on her shoulders, studying her face to make sure she’s okay, until she smiles at him and says, “Um. Thanks.”

He squeezes once before releasing her, mentally berating himself. He knows better than this. His control is  _ better  _ than this, but…

Avery’s hand slips into his as he turns toward the slums, her fingers entwining with his. He glances over his shoulder at her, parting his lips as he inhales, and falls silent at the expression on her face. It’s so  _ soft _ , so open, a blush gracing her cheekbones as she offers him a tiny, shy smile.

_ Shit.  _ What he wouldn’t do to keep that smile on her face.

He squeezes her fingers and tugs until she’s following him. He leads her through the slums, taking back staircases and lesser-used alleys to her apartment -- more out of habit than out of any real concern for their safety -- and she follows him without question, that same little smile on her face every time he looks back at her.

It’s been a long time since someone has looked at him like that. So… hopeful and genuine, not like they’re hoping to get something out of him, or like they’re hoping for a quick fuck, or whatever the hell expression Zia had on her face the whole time that had him fooled so completely.

He pushes that thought away by squeezing Avery’s fingers again when they round the last corner before her apartment, and he can’t keep an answering smile from his face when she squeezes back this time.

“Hey, uh… thanks again for dinner. I was going to get it for us.”

Reyes stops walking at her door, the lock flashing red as it silently demands her access codes to let them in since the proximity sensors have long since been turned off. He looks down at her, but she makes no move to open the door; instead, she takes a half step closer, lifting her free hand to rest on his waist as her eyes roam freely over his face.

“Avery…” He intends to let her down gently, he  _ should  _ let her down gently, but she shivers when her name rolls off his tongue, closing her eyes briefly before opening them again to show widened pupils. 

Maybe he’s had too much to drink too, because it’s all over as soon as she licks her lips and presses just a little closer -- his free hand slides up from her elbow to cup her jaw, tilting her head just so as their lips meet, finally,  _ finally. _

She gasps against his mouth and clutches him tighter, listing forward until she’s leaning against him and he has to release her hand to wrap an arm around her waist to hold her steady. Their lips move together, slowly, learning and teasing and tasting, and she trembles against him.

He breaks the kiss only to rest his forehead against hers. She draws in a ragged breath and just holds him, staying still as he tries to control his heartbeat and the frantic voice in his head that insists he’s making a mistake in trusting again, in dragging her down to be with him.

She doesn’t seem to have time for such doubts, reaching up to hook one arm around his neck to drag his lips back to hers. This kiss is harder, more demanding, and he groans into it, moving a full step closer and backing her into her apartment door.

She smiles against his mouth and parts her lips to his tongue, welcoming and matching his movements as he desperately deepens their kiss. He presses his hips into hers, swallowing the little noises that spill from her mouth, relishing in the feel of her fingers digging into his back.

He breaks away again and presses a lingering kiss to her forehead, holding himself in check from pushing for more than he should. Avery struggles to catch her breath but doesn’t even try to pull away -- she even resists for a half-second when he goes to take a step back.

“I feel like I should question your taste in men.”

Avery laughs then, surprised, her face crinkling in amusement. “I don’t know, I think it’s pretty good.” She lifts her hands from his hips to smooth over his chest as she smiles up at him, eyes earnest. “Do you want to come in? I, um, can make us coffee.” She arches her brows at him, still grinning, and he  _ knows  _ she doesn’t mean just coffee, though he would appreciate either.

But…

“I should really get back and check on things,” he says, and then curses himself for the way the smile slips a little from her face. Heedless of the space he wants to put between them -- though, really, what’s the point now? He’s already made his first mistake, and he’s ready to throw himself into the next -- he offers, “Let’s do dinner again tomorrow, unless you have plans with Keema. I’ll let you pay this time.”

“Oh, will you?” The smile is back, growing as she teases him. “Sounds like a plan, then.”

He takes another step away, giving her enough room to unlock her door. It slides open, exposing a slightly messy apartment that’s so inviting to him, but he holds his ground.

“I’ll see you then, Reyes.” Her eyes drop to his lips, and he kisses her again before he even realizes he’s made the decision to.

“I’ll see you then.” He forces himself to walk away before he can lift her and carry her into her apartment like his heart is begging him to. He doesn’t hear her door lock back until after he turns the corner back to Tartarus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's not a Ma-Sulevin Original (TM) until someone is trembling into a kiss.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW, babes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Take my hand  
> Take my whole life, too  
> For I can’t help falling in love with you  
> “I Can’t Help Falling in Love” by Ingrid Michaelson

For the first time since coming to Andromeda, Avery wakes with a smile on her face. Memories of last night play through her mind and she allows herself a moment of indulgence, rolling over to shove her face into the pillow with a little giggle.

It’s hard to rein herself in, to not get too worked up over a kiss -- even if it had been toe-curlingly, knee-weakeningly good -- even if she’d been wanting it for months. She’s spent so much time imagining the feel of his arms around her that when it finally happened she just didn’t want it to end.

Hopefully tonight’s dinner will end with a repeat performance and then some. At least she has time to get ready for a date the way she would have back in the Milky Way -- or, at least, do most of her old routine. Some things aren’t available in Andromeda, after all, and her old routine of makeup won’t make her as pretty as it used to. Finding a little mascara wouldn’t hurt, though.

Before she can spend the evening -- and, if she’s being honest with herself, hopefully the whole night -- with Reyes, she has a full day of work ahead of her.

She drags herself out of bed and into the kitchen. Coffee first. Everything else can come after.

\---

When the time finally (finally!) comes for their date, Avery is nearly beside herself with excitement, and she doesn’t bother to hide it as she practically floats through the slums to Reyes’ apartment. She holds their dinner in a bag, per their earlier agreement that she would be the one to foot the bill on their date.

A message from Keema buzzes through just before she reaches his door, and Avery pulls it up to read as she closes the last of the distance.

_ > To: A. Rossi _ _  
_ _ > From: K. Dohrgun _

_ > Have fun tonight! _ _  
_ _ > You both deserve it. _

Reyes’ door whisks open as she finishes reading the message, and he catches her giggling. She looks up at him, lips parted on a laugh, and hands him their food before pushing her way into his apartment.

“Did you tell Keema about our date?” Avery glances over her shoulder at Reyes, still smiling softly as she makes herself at home. She slips out of her shoes as he carries the food over to put it on plates -- tonight’s dinner is something resembling pasta, though there’s no telling what it will really taste like -- and plops herself down on his couch.

“Did Keema say something to  _ you  _ about our date?” Reyes joins her on the couch and hands her one of the plates, but turns away to start a vid playing on the screen he has on the opposite wall. 

Avery resists the urge to roll her eyes at his non-answer, but humors him anyway. “She sent me a message to have fun.” She lifts her left hand and shows the back of her wrist to Reyes, indicating her omnitool, then glances at the screen where their angaran movie is starting to play from just before she fell asleep the last time.

Does this count as their third date? It might be their first  _ official  _ date, but it’s definitely the third time they’ve actually sat down, just the two of them, to eat and talk. Either way, it feels comfortable even during the silences as they fall back into the plot of the movie.

They drift closer together as they finish eating, plates discarded on the table in front of them. Reyes reaches for Avery first, and she gladly goes to him, cuddling against his side with a grin she can’t quite manage to bite back.

Reyes doesn’t even bother hiding his smile, letting it settle onto his face like it belongs there, softening the lines around his eyes and quirking his lips up at the corners when Avery tilts her head to look up at him. He pretends he doesn’t notice, but she sees his smile growing wider, so she closes the distance between them to press a gentle kiss to the side of his neck.

He turns then, one arm around her shoulders and the other hand lifting to cup her jaw, to give her a  _ real _ kiss. This one lingers, their lips still tasting like the sauce on their dinner, and Avery can’t hold back the wide smile this time.

She’s still grinning when he pulls away to take a breath. “Hi there,” she says, and Reyes huffs out a laugh. “I’ve been waiting a long time to do that.”

He arches his eyebrows. “Since last night?”

He’s blatantly fishing for information, but Avery just laughs. She pushes herself up from where she’s still reclined against him and swings her leg over so she can straddle his lap. He lets his hands rest on her hips, guiding her gently without putting too much pressure on her, and stares at her lips as she answers him.

“Yeah, but I’ve been waiting  _ much _ longer for this.” Her smile is wicked before she buries her fingers in his carefully styled hair to pull his face up to hers.

His pleased chuckle turns into a groan as she deepens their kiss, her tongue swiping across his lips to tease him. He slips his hands up her back to pull her against his chest, eliminating any space between their bodies, and she sighs contentedly before nipping at his bottom lip.

“This is what you wanted?” His voice is a quiet rumble, eyes hooded and fingers smoothing down her back only to creep under the hem of her top to splay across the warm, smooth skin of her lower back.

She shivers at the contact, fingers clutching tighter at his head before releasing him to rub soft circles into the close-cropped hair at the nape of his neck. “To start with, yeah.”

She winks at him, and he surges forward to capture her lips in another searing kiss, this one surprising the moan out of her instead of him. His hands slip higher, using his grip to pull her closer until she’s squirming in his lap and her cheeks are turning pink.

This time she’s the one who breaks their kiss, but only because she can’t keep herself from trailing a line of kisses along his jaw to his ear and down to his neck, listening carefully as she moves for little gasps or groans that tell her she’s making him feel as good as she wants him to feel.

He doesn’t disappoint. Reyes is a vocal lover, treating each hot press of her lips against his skin as a new opportunity to let her know how much he appreciates her attentions. By the time she nips her way back to his mouth to press her tongue against his, their breaths are coming heavy and his fingers are teasing at the edge of her bra.

She needs to hear  _ more _ .

She wiggles her hips, adjusting her seat in his lap, grinding gently until she hits him just right and a thrill goes through her as he groans. His hands fly down to her hips and grip her tight, and for half a breath she’s afraid he’s going to stop her… but he just guides her against him, helping her move in a slow but steady rhythm that teases them both through the layers of material between them.

He tears his mouth from hers with a great force of will to kiss her throat, moaning back when she groans and her rhythm against him falters. The fabric between them grows to be too much and he pushes her tank top up over her stomach, only to have her take it from his hands and pull it off the rest of the way and drop it to the floor.

She pulls her bra off too without a moment of hesitation and then reaches for the buttons on his shirt before he breaks her concentration by sliding his hands from her stomach up to cup her breasts, giving each a gentle, appreciative squeeze.

A soft moan slips from between her parted lips as she leans away and arches her back, giving him more room to touch her and encouraging him to do so at the same time. He obeys her, both willing and eager, and continues to knead one while kissing the other with a single-minded intensity that makes her squirm in his grip.

His tongue is sinful, twirling around her nipple to make it harden under his touch before he gently -- oh so gently -- brushes his teeth across it instead. She whines at the sensation, pressing up and into him, begging for more. He eagerly gives in, one hand on her back to hold her steady as he kisses from one breast to the other to give it the same loving attention.

It’s only when she makes a quiet noise of distress and starts to pull away, pushing up and to one side with her knees that he releases her, eyes wide and lips wet.

“I’m sorry,” he starts, releasing his grip on her. His eyebrows pull together and he grimaces, looking guilty even though he doesn’t know what she’s thinking. “What’s wrong?”

“My knee,” she gasps out, cheeks still pink despite her pain as she stares down at him. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You could keep doing that forever as far as I’m concerned.” His frown immediately transforms into a smirk, and she smiles back at him, still hovering over him with most of her weight on her good knee. His hands return to her hips, trying to support her weight, as she adds, “I think you have a bed somewhere around here I’d be interested in seeing again.”

“You’re sure?” The concerned look is back in Reyes’ eyes, and Avery leans down to press a slow kiss to his lips. She lingers until he relaxes against her then pull away to kiss his forehead.

“Very sure.”

Reyes makes a noise of satisfaction deep in his chest, almost like a growl, but before Avery can react to it, he’s standing with her in his arms. She squeals at the sudden change in height, wrapping arms and legs around him to hold herself steady as he pads, barefoot, from the couch to his bed.

He drops her, somewhat unceremoniously, onto his mattress and she bounces with a soft thump and a giggle. She sits up and reaches again for the buttons on his shirt, and this time he lets her undress him. When he’s shirtless too, she goes for the belt before he bats her hands away and crawls onto the bed to kneel over her.

“Your knee isn’t still bothering you?” His care makes her blush and reach for him, using her hands on the back of his head to pull him down for more kisses. This may just be the happiest she’s been since waking up in Andromeda, here in Reyes’ arms under his careful gaze with his lips worshiping every inch of skin they touch.

“Reyes,  _ please. _ ” She’s certainly not above begging, and the smoldering look Reyes gives her shows her that he enjoys the whine in her voice. “I’m fine. I want this. I just can’t kneel right now — maybe next time?” She nips at his bottom lip, punctuating her words, and he growls again. “Right now, I  _ want _ you.”

His dark hair has tumbled free from the gel holding it in place, and she smooths a curl away from his forehead before pulling his face back to hers. She wraps her legs around his waist to hold his body against hers, rocking up to prove how much she wants this -- how long she’s been  _ waiting _ for this.

He sighs into the kiss, a small happy noise, and slides his hand from her bad knee down her thigh to the shorts she wore over with just this in mind. 

Apparently satisfied with her willingness to participate, Reyes swipes his tongue across hers one last time before moving to kiss down to the hollow of her throat. She gasps and leans her head back, giving him more room to work, her fingers moving to slide into his hair as he continues kissing down her chest to her breasts.

He doesn’t linger here this time, instead on a mission to fully taste her. He pulls her shorts and panties off in one sure tug, letting them fall to the floor without a second glance as he stares at the woman spread before him, the same desire shining out of his eyes that she feels burning in hers.

“Reyes…” she starts, voice low. “Please.”

He arches his brows at her. “ ‘Please’?” he echoes. “Please what, Avery?

She flushes dark at her name rolling off of his tongue, and instead of answering with her words she spreads her legs a little wider. He takes the hint, first pressing a soft kiss to her bad knee before kissing down her soft thigh, almost to its apex before moving to kiss its twin.

She groans as he skips the place she wants him the most, shifting her hips restlessly towards his face in the hope that he’ll give in and press that talented tongue into her. Instead, he takes that time to tease her, tasting and nipping little bruises into her thighs until she’s a panting, trembling mess under his touch.

Only then does he give in to her desires -- to  _ their  _ desires -- to settle comfortably onto his stomach and press his lips against her clit. She arches against his mouth, lower lip caught between her teeth, and groans deep in her chest at the feeling of his tongue exploring her folds.

Reyes groans in answer, squeezing his eyes shut and gripping her thighs tight in his hands to hold him open as he tastes her as though she’s the most delicious thing to ever touch his tongue.

He finds a rhythm that makes her squirm and sticks with it, pushing her closer and closer to her breaking point until he feels her thighs trembling under his hands and her fingers dig into his hair to push him away.

He obeys her tug, propping himself up on his elbows to stare at her, eyes bright and chin glistening. He licks his lips as she tugs again, then crawls up her body and lets her pull him down for a kiss. It’s wet and sloppy, and they both moan into it when their tongues tangle. 

Still kissing him like it’s the only thing keeping her alive, Avery reaches down between their bodies to finally undo his pants. It’s takes longer than it should have, just going by touch, but she finally undoes his belt, button, and zipper, and pushes them down over his hips.

It’s Reyes who finally breaks their kiss, resting his forehead against hers as she takes his cock in her hand and strokes it firmly from base to tip, a rumble spilling out of his chest as he hardens completely under her touch. She bends her good knee and arches her hips up toward him, a murmured  _ please  _ falling from her lips as the tip of him slides through her wetness.

He presses his face into her neck as she guides him inside of her, her free hand still on the back of his head. The slide is slow and gradual, eased by his earlier attentions, and she shudders as soon as he’s fully inside of her.

“Oh my god,” she breathes, clenching around him. “Oh my god.  _ Reyes. _ ”

He pulls away just enough to kiss her once, then to smile down at her. “Good?”

She huffs out a breathless laugh as she nods. “Yeah.” She slides her hands down his back, scratching gently with blunt nails until she reaches the curve of his ass. She grips it tight and tugs, pushing him just that much deeper inside of her, and grins up at him when he squeezes his eyes shut and shudders too.

“Good?” she teases, squeezing him again for good measure.

His eyes pop open and their gazes hold for a long moment before a beautiful smirk twists his lips. “ _ Good _ ,” he breathes, and then he takes hold of her hip with one hand as he pulls almost completely out of her and fucks hard back in.

Avery clenches her jaw and leans her head back, first holding on to Reyes’ shoulders and then propping her hands against the wall above her head to help herself push into his thrusts. Each one hits her deep, pushing gasping moans from her throat as she struggles to catch her breath without asking him to slow down.

Reyes can’t keep his lips off of her, even if it’s just to brush them across her throat as he moves inside of her. Each kiss, tender against her skin, makes her heart swell even as the rest of her body builds inexorably toward her end with each sure jerk of Reyes’ hips.

“ _ Fuck, _ Reyes, please.” A particularly hard thrust from her takes Reyes by surprise and nearly unseats him; he pulls back and kneels on the bed, tugging her into his lap as he moves. He holds her still, hips tilted just so and trapped in his large hands, and fucks into her with harder, slower strokes.

She nearly screams as he hits her just right, toes curling and back arching as she throws herself into her pleasure. Reyes stares down at her, dark hair curling against his face and chest starting to glisten with sweat. 

He leans over her slightly, adjusting the angle, and runs one hand up over her stomach to her breast, pinching at her nipple to make her squeal and open her eyes to look at him. He smiles at her even as his chest heaves for breath, and Avery meets his gaze with hooded eyes and a desperate whine.

She takes his wandering hand in hers and squeezes his fingers before redirecting them between her legs. He follows her wordless command and strokes her clit with his thumb, matching his thrusts with firm presses against her until her body goes tense and her body tries to curl in on itself.

Reyes’ attentions hold Avery on the edge for what feels like ages, pleasure threatening to overwhelm her and break her apart. She whines as that coil in her body grows tighter and tighter, the release almost frightening her as it draws inexorably closer.

Her breath catches in her breath as she begins to come, body trembling, and then whooshes out of her lungs as she wordlessly calls for Reyes to join her.

He grinds his teeth together and leans over her, holding back even as his balls tense and draw up to his body, threatening to make him spill before he’s ready. He waits, desperately, until Avery’s orgasm begins to taper into aftershocks, the walls of her cunt still fluttering around him, and then he gives in.

He holds her hips tight, almost tight enough to bruise, and fucks hard into her before he hilts himself and spills inside of her. He bends over her, almost falling into her arms as she wraps them around him and tugs him closer. She catches his lips with hers and swallows his groan as it rumbles from his chest, rubbing soothing circles against the nape of his neck.

After a moment, he relaxes against her, almost collapsing on top of her, and she giggles as he buries his face in the crook of her neck. She rubs over his back and lets her legs relax from around him, her heels resting on the mattress on either side of him.

When he finally pulls away, it’s not before giving her another lingering kiss, tongue swiping against her lower lip as a final taste before finally pulling out and sitting up at the edge of the bed.

Avery watches him with heavy-lidded eyes, making no move to get up even as he finally stands and walks to his tiny bathroom. Instead, she stretches out on the mattress and watches him, reveling in his nakedness until he’s out of sight.

She can hear water running in the bathroom, but waits until it’s shut off to force herself to stand. She passes him on her way to get cleaned up, walking with one hand on the wall to help support herself on wobbly legs.

He catches her halfway there and drags her in for another kiss, hands cupping and squeezing her bare ass for a moment before he sends her on her way with a gentle smack.

By the time she’s cleaned up and back to his bed, Reyes has almost drifted off to sleep. She sits on the edge of the mattress, hesitating between joining him uninvited and slipping out without saying goodbye. He answers her question without speaking, reaching for her hand and pulling her down next to him.

He cuddles against her, wrapping his body around him from behind. She relaxes into his touch, grinning widely where she buries her face in the pillow, and he holds her tight to his chest. He leaves a line of kisses along her shoulder, making her squirm against him, before burying his face in her short hair and finally falling asleep.

Avery stays awake, blinking into the light that still bathes his apartment, replaying the night over in her mind.

He left the lights on for her, and she can’t help the way that makes her heart clench.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So there's some smut up front, but then there's important plot things later. Promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> But the truth is I need you  
> To tell you I’m worthy  
> “The Pugilist” by Keaton Henson

Reyes wakes slowly the next morning, squeezing his eyes closed against the unusual brightness of his bedroom. He’s curled around a warm body, hands resting on soft flesh that presses back into him when he starts to shift in gentle confusion.

Hair tickles his nose and he finally forces his eyes open to see the rich brown locks that belong to Avery Ryder. She rests in his arms with her face still slack in sleep but a little smile playing at her lips. He props himself up on one elbow to look down at her, and can’t help but smile in response to her expression.

He smooths her hair away from her eyes, fingertips lingering against the rough skin of her scar. Her eye twitches at his touch, so he slides his hand down over her shoulder to her arm, watching the path it takes with rapt attention. Dimly, he notices that they’re on the opposite side of the bed from where they fell asleep, almost like she rolled away during the night and he followed her, drawn to her warmth.

She squirms when his fingers trace over the dip of her waist, and he smiles as he repeats the motion. She’s ticklish?

He lays back down and pulls the blanket up to cover her once more, but he keeps his hands on her skin as he cuddles behind her. She sighs and melts against his touch, perhaps not quite as asleep as she’s pretending to be, and he trails kisses across her shoulder to her neck before biting lightly into her skin.

She moans at this -- definitely not asleep, then, and Reyes sends a silent thank you to whatever god is listening -- and arches her back to press her bare ass against his arousal trapped between them. He answers her moan with one of his own, kissing her again, and lazily grinds against her.

“Good morning.” His greeting is murmured against her skin, one hand moving up to cup her breast and tease at a nipple already hard and wanting, the other slipping under her body to hold her close. Her fingers find his, twining them together, and he shivers as his heart skips a beat.

“Mmm.  _ Morning _ .” Her voice is heavy with sleep, but she presses into his touch with a sigh of contentment. He wishes he could see her face, to match the blissful expression to the sound, but he contents himself with kissing every bit of skin he can reach. He can feel her toes curling against his shins when his teeth scrape against her, but it isn’t until she impatiently redirects his hand from her breasts to between her thighs with a moaned, “Please?” that he dares push for more.

She’s already wet and ready for him, shivering when his fingers finally delve into her folds. He wants to tease her longer than he did last night, but she lifts one leg to throw it back over his hips, spreading herself open for him and inviting  _ more  _ all at once, and he can’t remember anything other than how long he’s been waiting for this, for her.

He pulls his hand away, despite her little whine, and grips his cock instead. He can’t help but give it a few firm strokes before guiding it against her heat. This time, he does tease her, rubbing the head through the slickness between her thighs until she impatiently growls and rolls her hips down at the same time he’s teasing her with a shallow thrust.

He slides inside of her and they both groan in pleasure -- Reyes into the back of her neck and Avery into the open air of his apartment. He grabs her thigh to keep her still and begins to rock into her, steadily slipping deeper with each thrust until he’s completely seated inside of her, fully buried in her cunt almost hot enough to be scalding.

Every slow drag of his skin against hers makes him murmur against her, little endearments that she won’t understand but mean the world for him to say. How beautiful she is, how much he cares for her, how he’ll take care of her -- then, as his end grows nearer, how he wants to feel her come apart around him, how he wants to hear her, how he wants to  _ taste  _ her.

“Avery,  _ mi vida _ …” He speaks directly into her ear, changing to a language she can understand so she can hear him and won’t mistake his words for anything other than the plea they are. “Come for me.”

She nods desperately, a whine escaping her, and moves her free hand down between her legs to circle her clit. Her inner walls clench at her touch, drawing moans from both of them, and he bites her again as he waits for her to finish. He grinds against her and she bows her back to push him into the right spot and then--

“Reyes,  _ fu-uck! _ ” She tenses as she comes, her thigh trembling under Reyes’ hand, blue sparks dancing over her skin as she loses control of her biotics, and he lets himself finish inside of her with a grateful cry against her shoulder. She lets him hold her hips tight against him, her fingers still squeezing his, and then collapses boneless onto her front when he releases her.

He chuckles a little at that, even as he rolls onto his back and stretches out the leg that was trapped beneath them. He feels cold now that his skin isn’t pressed against hers, and he rests the hand closest to her on the small of her back. Just that little bit of contact makes his racing heart slow and his breath begin to steady in his lungs.

Avery’s breathing remains shallow even after his returns to normal, and he sits up to lean over her. Her eyes are closed, a wide smile on her face, and she doesn’t move even when he presses his hand flat against her spine to feel her lungs expanding and contracting in her chest.

“Are you alright?” He can’t help the worry that tinges his voice, but Avery doesn’t react to it.

“Mhmmm…” She draws in a raspy breath between parted lips, not at all sounding  _ alright, _ and adds: “I’ll take a breathing treatment when I get home.”

“A breathing treatment?” He rubs his hand over her warm skin, soothing little circles that make her squirm under his touch.

After another moment, she sits up -- very slowly, face pinching in a little frown to show that she’d  _ much  _ rather be going back to sleep than sitting up to have this conversation with him -- and twists to face him. Her hair is sticking up on the side she’d been sleeping on, that cheek creased from the pillow, and she rubs at her eye with the knuckles on one hand. He wants to reach out and kiss her again, but he’s more worried about whatever’s wrong with her lungs. He  _ does  _ rest a hand on her calf, though, fingers catching against hair just starting to grow back, and keeps his eyes stubbornly on her face instead of letting them drift lower to admire her nakedness.

“So, Nakamoto says I have scarring in my lungs? It isn’t too much of a problem, generally, but it does impair my body’s ability to absorb oxygen.” She sounds like she’s quoting out of a medical article from the extranet, but of course there’s no extranet out here. Maybe Nakamoto sent her something to help explain. She takes a deep breath, turns her head and pushes her face into the crook of her elbow to cough, then turns back with pink cheeks. “I take breathing treatments sometimes, but I’m trying to make them last. They’ll be even harder to get more of than that medigel.”

Reyes lifts his free hand to the back of her head, fingers gently sliding into her hair, and pulls her face closer to his. Instead of kissing her lips, he kisses her forehead, lingering for a moment, before pulling back and resting his forehead against hers.

She allows the contact, eyes dropping closed, until he pulls away of his own free will. He wants to find out more. He wants to ask what happened and when and why, but… they’ve had a nice night and a  _ nice  _ morning.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” She rolls her eyes, just a little, but she nods, so Reyes slides to his feet and pretends not to notice her eyes roaming over him. “Want breakfast?”

Her whole face lights up, just like he knew it would, and she nods at him. She stands up too, grimaces, and then scurries past him to get to the bathroom before he can. Still smiling, he makes his way into the kitchen to start some coffee and see what other ingredients he can find to feed his… Avery, but the light tapping from his omnitool that indicates an urgent message distracts him while the water heats.

_ > To: R. Vidal _ _   
_ _ > From: E. de Tershaav _

_ > Shena. Update on Vehn Terev. I am sending someone from the human ship to help extract him today and need a rendezvous point. _

_ > Evfra de Tershaav _

Reyes blinks down at the message, breakfast forgotten in confusion. Despite working with the angara for months now, their communications have never become what you could call friendly -- but they’re usually not this obtuse, either. Why would someone from the Nexus be needed to help with Vehn Terev?

The bathroom door slides open, and Reyes snaps his gaze up to Avery’s naked form somewhat silhouetted by the bathroom light. She grins at him and rests her hip on the door jam. “Are you more likely to be upset by morning breath or by me using your toothbrush?”

He blinks once, considering, and then smiles. “You can use it.” Her smile grows, but she drops her gaze to his omnitool before taking a step back and politely pulling the door closed behind her to give him privacy to work.

_ > To: E. de Tershaav _ _   
_ _ > From: R. Vidal _

_ > I’ll meet them at Kralla’s Song. Who should I be expecting? _

The answer is delayed with the distance between their two planets -- really, that any contact can get from Govorkam to Onaon and back is amazing -- so he pours Avery’s coffee and pulls some ingredients from the fridge to make a warm breakfast, probably Avery’s first since waking in Andromeda if he was forced to guess.

When she comes back out of the bathroom, she casts a longing look at the steaming coffee before walking back to his room, scooping her shirt and bra up from the floor on her way. Reyes leans against the counter and watches, unashamed, as she moves with confidence -- and probably a little teasing -- through his apartment like she belongs there.

She probably does.

She comes back fully dressed after just a moment and grabs her coffee before settling on one of his stools. She props her elbows on the counter and gives him a slow look up-and-down. “I could get used to this view.”

He winks at her instead of responding and pushes her breakfast to her -- the Andromeda equivalent of instant oatmeal, not what he would  _ want  _ to cook for a new lover after an amazing first date, but all he has on hand -- before going to get dressed. He walks slowly through his apartment and pauses to stretch just before stepping behind the divider that separates his bedroom from the rest of the little apartment, assuming she’s watching him… and he’s rewarded with a low whistle that makes him laugh in response.

He gets Evfra’s reply while gathering clean clothes, and pauses to read and reply where Avery can’t see.

_ > To: R. Vidal _ _   
_ _ > From: E. de Tershaav _

_ > He is a human from your Nexus and goes by the name Ryder. His ship is landing now. _ _   
_ _ > We need Vehn Terev delivered  _ _ alive _ _. _

_ > Evfra de Tershaav _

Reyes stares at the name of his new contact as all the blood drains from his face.  _ Ryder.  _ His contacts were mostly unsure about whether or not the Hyperion had actually docked on the Nexus -- everyone had  _ heard _ the rumors, but no one had actually seen the Pathfinder with their own eyes. Contact with his friends on the Nexus is even more difficult than contacting other planets, and frequently messages take weeks to get an answer, if an answer comes at all.

But this… this feels like proof.

The light clinking of dishes from the other room brings him back to himself with a start, and he sends a confirmation to Evfra before closing the message and forcing his face back into its usual blank expression. If Alec Ryder  _ is  _ in Andromeda, Avery doesn’t need to meet him in the middle of the Sloane-controlled bar in the Port. 

Maybe once Vehn is on his way to the Resistance, he can get Alec down into the slums to meet Avery -- or he can just tell Avery the news and let her decide if she wants to see Alec again. She’s never seemed very keen on the idea of her father knowing she’s an exile.

Either way, he can’t let her know  _ right now _ .

She’s still eating when he finishes in his bedroom, but she doesn’t ask about the messages that have suddenly stolen all of his attention. When he finishes in the bathroom -- after making a mental note to get an extra toothbrush for her, if spending the night is going to be a regular thing like he hopes -- she’s working on her second cup of coffee and doing something on her omnitool that looks suspiciously like playing a game while her feet swing slowly back and forth above the floor.

She does frown a little when she sees him in his flight suit, but she smooths the expression away without mentioning it. Instead, she closes her omnitool, hands him his coffee, and stops swinging her feet.

“Something important?” Whenever Zia used to ask that question, she sounded annoyed and a little skeptical -- snide, even, sometimes, like whatever messages Reyes the Smuggler was receiving couldn’t be more important than  _ Zia Cordier.  _ When Avery asks, though, she sounds… resigned, maybe, but understanding at least. Definitely not angry.

He leans in and kisses the top of her head as he accepts his coffee, and when he pulls away, he’s rewarded with a dusting of pink across her cheeks. 

“Unfortunately,” he says, and he finds that he actually means it. If he could put aside the trappings of the Charlatan and Shena and everything else just for the day and take her back to bed… “I have to go now, but I can tell you about it later.” Probably, at least.

She tilts her head at that, curiosity sparking in those green eyes that he so adores, but doesn’t push him for information, making the tenseness in his chest relax just a bit. How did he find a woman who’s so damn understanding on this mess of a planet?

“You have fun with that, then.” She stands and tries to slip around him with her coffee cup in hand, but he grabs her waist and pulls her against him. She beams up and him and presses herself up onto her tiptoes to give the kiss he’s asking for while he takes her empty cup away from her.

She lingers after the first kiss to give him a second, and then a third, before she finally pulls herself away. He watches as she shoves her feet into her boots and leaves with the laces still loose before shaking himself and moving to clean their dishes.

He sends a message to one of his own Resistance contacts on Kadara, asking her to meet him in the market. He gets an affirmative message as he steps into the lift that Avery hates so much, and he has just a few minutes to get his head back in the game before meeting Avery’s father.

Meeting Alec without Avery there -- or even knowing about the man’s presence -- makes Reyes’ chest tighten and then settle into an ache which he stubbornly ignores. This is exactly why it’s a terrible idea to get involved with someone else right now… it only confuses things that should be simple, distracts him from his goal.

Right now, the goal is to help Alec rescue Vehn. Ultimately, it’s to remove Sloane from Kadara completely.

One step at a time.

His next step puts him on a meandering path through the market, thumbs tucked casually in his belt as he looks at all the odds and ends available for sale. The market really is booming -- when he first landed on Kadara after the exiles had cleared the port of kett, almost nothing had been available. But then, everyone had been working together much better than now, and Sloane hadn’t been so power-hungry.

With his ear to the ground, Reyes soon hears whispers of the new Nexus ship landing in the docks, so he turns to get a good spot in Kralla’s before Alec gets there. He skirts around a few of Sloane’s goons beating a man for missing his protection fees -- the very thing Avery had put her life on the line to avoid -- and finds a corner to fade into to wait.

He doesn’t have to wait long before he’s rewarded with the sight of a young man walking into Kralla’s wearing a bright white shirt and pants combo that would have stood out on Kadara even without the Initiative logo proudly on the chest. He walks with his chin high and eyes sharp, but his gaze doesn’t land on Reyes’ hiding spot.

He’s not Alec. He’s too young. This must be Scott.

Reyes watches as Scott strolls right up to the bar, where he waits, silent, for Umi to notice him. Reyes takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly before sliding into the  _ Reyes the Smuggler  _ personality he wears so well and sauntering down the stairs.

Umi is threatening a Krogan when Reyes steps onto the lower level, but acknowledges the two fingers he holds up with a nod. Scott doesn’t move from his position until Reyes says, “You look like you’re waiting for someone.” His voice drops into a flirtatious drawl out of habit, and Scott gives him the side eye before turning slightly to face him.

Reyes takes the two drinks from Umi and holds one out to Scott, who stares down at their contents with a little curl to his upper lip.

“I don’t drink.”

Well. Scott turns away, leaning against the bar and staring out at the patrons like he’s waiting for someone else -- and Reyes takes advantage of the distraction to down  _ both  _ drinks. He might as well now that they're on his tab.

“Shena,” he says, by way of introduction and to get Scott’s attention from wherever it’s wandered, “but you can call me Reyes. I hate codenames.” He holds his hand out and Scott shakes it with an arch of his brows. 

“I was expecting someone a little more… angaran?” Scott releases Reyes’ hand and crosses his arms, leaning back against the bar but facing Reyes instead of the crowd. His expression is still closed off, but at least Reyes has his full attention. 

Reyes imagines Evfra giving Scott the bare minimum of information needed for this meeting -- probably “you’re looking for Shena, get Vehn Terev off the planet” -- and chuckles before explaining his connection to the Resistance. It took months for him to gain Evfra’s reluctant trust, and even saving the Moshae doesn’t seem to have gained Scott much more.

“So you’re a smuggler.” Scott’s voice is flat and unamused, so Reyes just shrugs and leads him away from the bar and out onto the balcony that overlooks the badlands.

They lean over the railing to talk, and Reyes watches Scott as Scott looks out over the planet. Every so often, a breeze ruffles their hair and brings the scent of sulfur up at full strength. Scott wrinkles his nose and turns away each time, but discreetly, as though he doesn’t want to draw attention to his discomfort.

It’s not until Scott snorts and mutters “She sounds like my kind of leader,” with his words absolutely dripping with sarcasm that Reyes can finally see the full family resemblance. It really goes beyond the brown of their hair and the green of their eyes -- right down to the laser focus and the sense of humor he can see glimmering under Scott’s serious, vaguely disgusted exterior.

Their meeting only truly lasts a few minutes before Reyes tells Scott to go  _ deal  _ with Sloane and slips away to do the same with his Resistance contact. He can see some of Scott’s friends in different corners of the bar -- not that they stand out, exactly, but because they’re staring at him with the same level of attention that Scott did too. An old,  _ old  _ krogan in one corner, a young turian in another, and an even younger, relatively speaking of course, asari who winks at him when they lock eyes.

He finds Avfre in the market, haggling over the price of a mod for her rifle, and they exchange nods before Reyes continues on to find somewhere else to linger until Scott comes through on his way to Sloane.

It doesn’t take long. Scott comes through, a pinched look on his face, and talks his way past the guards into Sloane’s headquarters. Reyes checks the time on his omnitool and confirms the vial of acid to help Vehn escape is safely in one of his suit’s many pockets. It should only take a few minutes before Sloane chews Scott up and spits him back out, and then Reyes can push him into the right direction.

His omnitool buzzes not ten minutes later, and he glances at the message before quietly swearing.

_ > To: R. Vidal _ _   
_ _ > From: K. Dohrgun _

_ > Your friend made a deal with S. _ _   
_ _ > He’s speaking with Vehn now and will still let her execute him for the Port. _

Reyes stares at the message for several seconds before deleting it. If that’s how Scott is going to play the political game in Kadara…

He finishes negotiations with a lovely man for some of the jerky he knows Avery likes before messaging the contact to tell him the plan is off unless he wants to take steps on his own -- which seems unlikely -- and he then heads toward the lift to message Avery.

They need to talk.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All my friends are heathens, take it slow  
> Wait for them to ask you who you know  
> Please don’t make any sudden moves  
> You don’t know half of the abuse  
> “Heathens” by Twenty-One Pilots

Sometime between sitting down to work for the day and getting up to make a third cup of coffee a little while later, Avery received three messages from Reyes with increasing levels of urgency attached to them. The last one, from just a couple of minutes ago, is actually flagged as important by her omnitool and simply says for her to get to Tartarus  _ immediately. _

She stares at the message a second before caving in. She takes her coffee cup with her, completely unwilling to waste a single cup even as she power-walks through the slums towards the club. She enters through the upper level and goes straight to Reyes’ room, and the door slides open automatically when she stands in front of it.

“This better be important, I was just--” Four people turn around to look at her instead of just the one she was expecting, and she nearly drops her cup as her hands start to shake.

“Ah, Avery…” Reyes’ warm voice draws her attention away from a pair of wide green eyes, and she looks to the side in time to see Reyes walking up to her. He takes her cup in one hand and her elbow in the other, pulling her farther into the room so that the door will shut back behind her. “I believe you know my new friend here?” He pushes her with the barest of pressure towards Scott, and that makes the coil in her chest spring free.

“What are you  _ doing here _ ?” she demands, continuing to move even after Reyes releases her, nearly jumping into Scott’s arms to wrap her arms around his neck. He bends down enough to wrap his arms around her waist, squeezing her just as hard as she hugs him, despite the shiny white and blue armor digging into her skin.

“Me? What are  _ you  _ doing here?” Scott releases her and pushes her away and holds her at arm’s length, staring down at her. His eyes roam over the changes in her since they said goodbye before she went into cryo: the hair, the scarring, the lost weight. “Are you a fucking exile now?”

The words strike her almost as a physical blow, and she flinches. “I -- you -- where’s dad?”

It’s Scott’s turn to flinch, and he drops his hands to his sides where they flit around before resting on his holstered pistols. Behind him, his two companions shift away to give them a little privacy, and Avery glances at them only enough to vaguely recognize them both from her time on the Nexus. 

“Scott. Where’s Alec?” Her voice tips up as she has to repeat her question, deadly certainty settling in her stomach in a way that makes her regret all the coffee. “Why are you here?”

Scott’s cheeks, already reddened with sunburn, darken and his eyes dance away from hers like they do when he’s hiding something. She puts her hands on her hips and glares at him with all the big sister attitude she can muster. She hasn’t seen him in more than a year, but she falls into this old habit with comfortable ease.

“He’s… gone, Avery. After we landed on Habitat 7.” His voice drops to a whisper and he adds, “He saved my life.”

Avery wavers on her feet and closes her eyes. She sucks in a deep breath through her nose and holds it for a count of five. When she exhales, she opens her eyes again and blinks back the tears she wasn’t expecting.

“Alec’s  _ dead _ ?” She has to say the words out loud, has to hear Scott acknowledge them. 

Instead of answering her question, Scott grimaces at her. “You shouldn’t call him that.”

“Goddamnit, Scott.” Avery matches his stormy expression. “I’m not arguing with you about this again. What  _ happened _ ? Why are you here? Where’s…” She looks over his shoulder at his two companions -- one an asari with her midriff exposed, one a turian who-- “Vetra?”

Vetra turns her head with a little sheepish wiggle of her mandibles. “Avery.”

Scott turns slightly to send his glare at Vetra, who looks away again. The asari snickers, and Vetra elbows her in the side.

“When the Hyperion got to Heleus, it hit the Scourge, but we were close enough to Habitat 7 that we just… went for it. Dad’s shuttle crashed, but mine broke open when we hit atmo. Dad was okay after that, but…” he glances at Reyes before continuing. “There was this… atmosphere processor? Dad and SAM figured out how to turn it on, but it broke my helmet. Dad… gave me his.” Scott’s eyes are red-rimmed now, his jaw set hard to keep from crying. 

Avery takes another slow breath, counting her inhale and exhale. Then she does it again before swallowing hard and clearing her throat. Nausea swirls in her stomach, and for a terrible second she’s afraid she’s going to be sick right there in the middle of Reyes’ room, but she doesn’t. Her hands are shaking when she presses them to her eyes and groans instead.

“Okay. Okay. What about everyone else?” She can’t see Scott’s reaction to her question, but she can feel Reyes’ steadying presence at her back, his hand on her waist, and she leans back into him gratefully as Scott’s strained voice begins again.

“Harry’s fine. He decided to stay on the Hyperion, though. Said he’s too old for Pathfinding.” Avery pulls her hands away from her face in time to see Scott shift from one foot to the other. He’s still frowning, but he’s looking at where Reyes’ hand is resting against Avery’s shirt. Avery leans a little harder into Reyes’ warmth and dares Scott to say something. “Liam and Cora are fine, too. They’re both on the ship.”

Scott’s lips twitch when he mentions Cora, and Avery narrows her eyes at that. “Cora? You mean the  _ Huntress _ ?” The asari snorts. Vetra elbows her again. 

Scott rolls his eyes. “She’s not that bad.”

“She’s not that--” Avery starts, then cuts herself off. “You  _ like  _ her.”

Scott’s mouth opens soundlessly, so Avery looks over his shoulder for confirmation. Vetra looks uncomfortable, but the asari nods rapidly, a huge, shit-eating grin on her face.

“They’re  _ totally _ doing it.” A pause, then she adds: “Hi, I’m Peebee.”

“Nice to meet you, Peebee,” Avery says, reflexively, then snaps her gaze back to Scott as her words sink in. “ _ Excuse  _ me? You and Cora? You  _ know  _ she had a crush on Alec.”

“She did  _ not _ ,” Scott snaps, his face and neck flushing red. His hands are in fists at his sides. There’s a little pause as Avery just continues staring at him, then he adds: “I  _ asked _ .” Peebee starts giggling again, but she has the grace to muffle it behind her purple-gloved hand. “And, anyway, that’s not… that doesn’t matter  _ right now _ . Dad is  _ dead  _ and you’re here on Kadara sh-shacked up with some smuggler!” He trips over his words slightly and waves at Reyes, who doesn’t react beyond a slight squeeze of Avery’s waist.

“Hey!” Avery claps her hands together and Scott rolls his eyes to stare at the ceiling. “You don’t know what it was like on the Nexus! I woke up and almost died  _ twice  _ in the first  _ two hours,  _ and then nearly starved to death over the next few months! I have  _ permanent scarring  _ in my lungs, Scott. _Permanent._ Tann and Addison nearly  _ ruined  _ that place. You’d've left too.”

Scott grinds his teeth together. “You could have gone back in cryo and waited for us.”

Avery shudders just at the thought but the anger blooms even brighter in her chest. “As far as we knew, that was a death sentence too! The station didn’t have enough power and no one knew where  _ the fuck you were. _ ” 

Behind Scott, Peebee and Vetra have both fallen silent at the reminder of the Nexus before the Hyperion arrived, at the hopeless darkness and rationing. Behind Avery, Reyes rubs her back with one hand, a solid presence helping her stand up in the face of her own anger and bad memories.

“You don’t  _ know _ ,” she repeats, voice cracking.

Scott’s face crumbles at the sound. “Oh, don’t  _ cry _ . Shit, sister.” He holds his arms out from his sides, and Avery steps into his half embrace with an embarrassed grunt, hugging him around the waist while he pats her head. “I’ll figure something out.”

Avery just grunts and pulls away, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hands. “Why are you here?”

“Uhh.” He pauses, glances at Reyes, then looks back down at Avery. “Pathfinder business?”

She wrinkles her nose. “Dude.”

He sighs. “I came here to do something for the angara, but we’re going to stay for a few days to do some other stuff on Kadara. We’re going to try to reset the vault here, if we can find it. See if we can solve the murders. You know.”

She grins up at him and lightly punches at his arm. “My baby brother. All grown up.”

“You’re only two minutes older than me, Avery.”

That’s… not really true anymore. She was awake in Andromeda for fourteen months before he showed up and woke up too, but she doesn’t point that fact out even as her smile slips just a little. They’ve never… not been the same age before. She wasn’t supposed to wake up until the arks all arrived.

Instead, she asks, “You’re going out into the badlands?” When he nods, she says, “Promise you’ll be safe?”

He hesitates, and she  _ sees _ him hesitate, but he finally nods.

“And then come see me again? I’ll buy you dinner.” 

“Sure, Avery.” He glances over her head at Reyes, who’s standing silently with his arms crossed. “I’ll contact you as soon as I make it to the murder site.”

“Looking forward to it, Ryder.” He offers his hand, and Scott shakes it before turning around to gesture at Vetra and Peebee to follow him. Peebee winks at them in farewell, bouncing ahead of Scott out of the room, and Vetra follows along at a more measured pace.

“Vetra?” Avery calls after her, and Vetra pauses in the doorway to look over her shoulder. “Is Sid okay?”

Vetra’s mandibles twitch. “Yeah. Sid’s good.” She moves forward without saying anything else, and the door slides shut behind her.

Avery and Reyes stand very still, Avery staring after her brother, Reyes staring at Avery. When she moves, he’s ready, arms wrapping around her waist and back to pull her against him with one hand on the back of her head. She grabs at the neck of his flight suit, the only part of it she can curl her fingers into, and presses as close as she can as she starts to shake.

“My dad’s dead, Reyes.” Her voice is muffled against his neck, and he runs his fingers through her hair.

“I’m so sorry,  _ mi vida _ .” He tries to hold her closer, but it’s physically impossible, so he just twists to kiss her cheek. “You still have your brother.”

“Yeah.” Her fingers relax a little and run down his back as she nuzzles into his neck. “Where did you find him?”

“That message I got this morning was from the Resistance leader. Evfra said he was sending ‘Ryder from the Nexus’ to get Vehn Terev out of Sloane’s prison. I thought it was… well, I thought it was Alec.”

Avery pulls away enough to look him in the eye. “And you needed to get Vehn Terev before you told me.” Reyes grimaces but nods, and Avery studies his expression for a long moment to see how genuine the regret is. When she’s satisfied, she pulls his face down to hers and kisses him softly. His hands on her waist tighten their grip, but he doesn’t pull her closer until she steps against him of her own free will.

She rests her forehead against his when she breaks the kiss, her fingers still on his chin. “Thank you.”

“Thank you?”

“Yeah. For helping Scott. For making sure I made it down here.” Reyes straightens up and narrows his eyes at her, but she just smiles up at him. “He might be an asshole, but he’s still my little brother.”

Reyes opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, then closes it again with a little shake of his head. He leans down to kiss her again instead, and she smiles against his lips as she returns the affection.

“Now,” she says, then leans in and kisses him one last time. “Where’d you put my coffee?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My favorite parts of having a little brother are a) calling him "baby brother" at every available opportunity, b) gently (more so than Avery, promise!) mocking his choice in crushes, and c) snapping at each other and immediately being okay after.
> 
> Living apart helps.
> 
> More Scott to come. Don't worry.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh the storm is raging against us now  
> If you’re afraid of falling don’t look down  
> “Walking the Wire” by Imagine Dragons

Earthquakes don’t happen on Kadara. Never, in all the months that Avery has spent on this shitty, sulfur-infused planet has she felt the very ground tremble under her feet. It makes her stomach swoop up into her throat, and she runs out of her apartment in her bare feet before she realizes what she’s doing. Being out in the open of the slums won’t help her.

At least everyone else seems to have had the same thought. Most of her neighbors stand with her, all looking at each other and muttering the same confused questions over and over. 

_ Did you feel that? What was that? _

Avery slips back into her apartment and locks the door behind her before anyone can look too closely at her. She usually doesn’t see any of her neighbors at all with the way she hides in her room or at Reyes’ place, and she doesn’t exactly intend to start now. She knows, in the back of her mind, that her days on Kadara are probably numbered. She helped dozens of people avoid Sloane’s wrath, but there’s no reason to believe they’ll put themselves on the line for her in return.

No reason to bring the end of things any faster by getting chummy with strangers at this point.

She sends a few messages out anyway, to people she already knows, asking what happened and making sure everyone is okay. Keema and Kian respond almost right away -- everything is fine, they don’t know what happened, and, since there’s no glass bottles or cups in Andromeda, nothing in the bar broke. 

Reyes’ response is much slower, and Avery is back to work before she gets pinged. She’s on her floor in front of the coffee table, bad knee stretched out in front of her, good knee bent so she can rest her elbow on it as she scrolls through walls of text. 

_ > To: A. Rossi _ _   
_ _ > From: R. Vidal _

_ > Everything’s fine here. I don’t know what happened, but I’m sure your darling brother has something to do with it. _ _   
_ _ > Let me know what he says. _ _   
_ __ > I’ll see you tonight.

Avery smiles and resists the urge to message him back. He’s busy, much busier than she is, and the faster he gets his work done the sooner she can see him. It’s faster when she’s not constantly harassing him, even if  _ sometimes  _ sending teasing messages is worth it when they finally meet up.

Memories of hours-long  _ teasing  _ that ended with good hard  _ fucking  _ not three steps into her apartment play behind her eyes, and she almost gives in to the temptation to start that little tradition over again before she shakes herself and goes back to working.  _ Someone  _ needs to do something around here, and there’s a lot more chatter on Sloane’s barely-encrypted servers now that the Initiative is finally taking an interest in their little shithole.

She’s halfway through compiling a report to send to her Collective contact -- a name she doesn’t recognize that belongs to a person she’s never met before -- when Scott finally messages her back.

_ > To: A. Rossi _ _   
_ _ > From: S. Ryder _

_ > Good news! We finally reset the vault. That’s what the earthquake was -- no need to panic. SAM said it wasn’t even that big. _ _   
_ _ > We’re heading back to port now. I’ll probably take a shower and grab a snack, but want to meet up after? _ _   
_ __ > I’ll bring the good coffee.

Avery smiles and responds right away.

_ > To: S. Ryder _ _   
_ _ > From: A. Rossi _

_ > Sounds like a plan. Bring LOTS of coffee. _

They’re going to see each other more in the days Scott’s working on Kadara than they had in the six months before Avery went into cryo. She glances around her apartment -- at the scattered clothes, datapads, and cups -- and decides it’s clean enough for her brother. She needs to get this report done before he comes over.

The minutes fly by as she buries herself in work, and when she finally hears a knock at her door, she’s surprised to see that it’s been almost two hours since her last message from Scott. She checks the security feed on her omnitool before unlocking her door from her seat on the floor, and it opens with the soft hiss of pneumatics to let him in.

He walks into her apartment with sure strides and barely glances at the clutter that somehow always accumulates around her no matter how much she swears she’ll keep herself organized. He has a large thermos in his hand, hopefully filled to the brim with coffee, and he puts it down on her counter with a solid  _ thunk  _ of metal against polymer.

Avery locks down her terminal and climbs to her feet to join him in the kitchen just as he finds two clean mugs drying by her sink. He fills them while she bounces at his side.

“Glad to see Heleus hasn’t changed you that much,” he says, just enough bitterness in his voice that Avery grimaces back at him.

“Don’t be a dick.” She accepts her mug and sits on one of the stools, pushing the other one out with her foot to indicate he should sit next to her.

He does, settling in and stretching his long legs out until they’re under her seat instead of his. “So, we reset the vault today.”

“Did you?” Avery blows on her coffee and watches the steam swirling in the air over it. She takes a slurping sip and winces when the dark liquid burns her tongue.

Scott nods, blowing on his coffee too. “Uh-huh. It should even out the weather and clean up the water, too, according to SAM.” Ah, yes. SAM. The Simulated Adaptive Matrix. The AI that Alec wasted the last of Ellen’s good days fighting over. Avery’s expression must show Scott the direction of her thoughts because he rolls his eyes. “He’s not that bad, Avery. You’d like him if you got to know him.”

“ ‘Him’?” Avery echoes.

Scott’s gaze flickers to something over her head, then he nods once. “You can talk to her, SAM.”

“ _ Hello, Avery. _ ” A human-like voice speaks through Scott’s omnitool, and Avery flinches away before she can stop herself. Scott just raises his eyebrows at her. “ _ I am SAM. We have spoken before. _ ”

“Um. Hi there, SAM.” Avery drums her fingernails against her mug, face starting to turn pink. “You… uh, think the water will be safe to drink soon?”

“ _ Yes. The atmosphere processor located in the heart of the vault is already working to clear the build-up of sulfur on Kadara. The water should become potable in a few days to a few weeks. _ ”

Scott smirks at her, obviously proud of what his AI can do. Avery is suitably impressed, and says as much.

“ _ Thank you. _ ” SAM falls silent, and Scott takes over where it left off.

“See? He’s cool.”

Avery shrugs with one shoulder, staring down into her mug. “I guess.”

“You can’t  _ still _ be mad about him, can you?” He sounds so exasperated that Avery would laugh in any other circumstance. Now, though, talking about  _ this _ , makes her eyes start to sting. “It’s been  _ years. _ ”

“Maybe if Alec hadn’t  _ abandoned  _ Mom--” Avery starts, but Scott cuts her off by slamming his cup down on her counter and sloshing coffee over the rim.

“He didn’t  _ abandon  _ her! He created SAM to save her!”

“Well, he  _ didn’t _ , did he? She’s dead, Scott. All SAM got us was discharge papers and a one-way ticket to this, this… clusterfuck of a cluster.” Scott’s eye twitches. “And I’m  _ not _ calling him Dad. He never was a  _ dad _ , and he stopped being my  _ father  _ the day he decided none of us were as important as that  _ thing _ .”

“He gave up his life for me, Avery!” Scott’s eyes are as red-rimmed as hers are, now, but he can’t stay seated to listen to her. He jumps up and paces, and she glares at him as he stomps around her little apartment, trampling over clothes and tile alike without any concern for where his booted feet land. “He did care about us. He  _ loved  _ us, and he loved Mom.”

“We were  _ inconveniences  _ to him, Scott, and you know it! You’ve said it too!”

Scott turns and stares at her from the other side of the room, hands clenched into tight fists at his side. She can see his cheek rippling under the pressure of his teeth grinding together, and she puts her mug down so she can cover her face with both hands.

“I don’t want to argue,” she mutters, only just loud enough for him to hear. “I just wanted to hear about the vault and what else you’ve been up to. I haven’t seen you in more than a year. A lot’s happened.”

She keeps her face covered until she hears Scott sit down on her couch, then she peers at him. He has his face in his hands too, his elbows propped up on his knees. He rakes his fingers through his hair, making it stick straight up at the front, and then stares at her.

“What do you know about the Collective? Your boyfriend isn’t very forthcoming.” Avery elects to answer his question and ignore -- for now -- the little sneer Scott gives her on the word  _ boyfriend. _

“They work opposite Sloane and her crew,” she says slowly. “They give people somewhere to go when Sloane doesn’t have a use for them anymore. They pay collection fees for people, they feed people who can't afford the food in the market, and they protect _me._ ”

Scott nods. He knew this already. “And what do you do for them?”

“Money stuff.” It’s close enough to the truth, and Scott’s uninterested enough in her chosen career that he doesn’t push it or ask if she does anything else. “Some of the Collective members got me the job after Sloane decided she was done with me.” Avery touches her scars and lifts her eyebrows.

“Sloane did that to you?” Scott’s voice is sharp, the authority he’s developed as Pathfinder coming out in full force.

“Err -- not Sloane herself, but some of her people. They busted up my ribs and knee too, while they were at it.” She swings her bad knee gently to indicate which leg. “Didn’t quite heal right.”

“Why?”

Avery blinks at him. “Well, we don’t really have doctors down here, you know. I had some medigel, a brace, and a cane for a bit, but there’s only so much that can do for a tendon.”

Scott rolls his eyes. “I meant why did Sloane do that to you? Didn’t pay your protection fees?”

“Oh.” Avery huffs out a little chuckle as her face starts to heat. She picks up her coffee again. “No, I was paying my protection fees. The problem was that I was paying a bunch of other people’s too, with money I skimmed off the top of her accounts.”

Scott just stares at her for a long moment before he shakes his head and chuckles. “Only you would have the balls to do that here.”

She smiles back and shrugs one shoulder. “I figured I’d do what I could while I could. Then I chopped off my hair, changed my name, and the Collective spread rumors that I’d escaped to the badlands.”

Scott’s face goes pale. “Don’t go out into the badlands.”

“...why?” Even with absolutely no intention of leaving the relative safety of the slums, Avery still finds herself suspicious of Scott’s intentions.

Scott just shakes his head. “It’s… just don’t. You don’t know what happens out there. I don’t want you mixed up in all of that. I’d rather have you back on the Nexus.”

“I can’t go back to the Nexus,” she scoffs, sliding off of her stool and carrying both coffee cups with her to the couch. “I didn’t just leave it, bub, I was actually part of the uprising. I had a gun in my hands. They’re not going to forgive and forget.”

She hands over his coffee, and he accepts it with a sigh. “I can’t believe you were a part of that shitshow.”

“You would’ve been on the front line too. It  _ was  _ a shitshow, but you can’t believe Tann or Addison’s version.” She settles onto the couch next to him and tucks her good leg under her. He doesn’t look over at her.

“I, uh, I could talk to them for you. Cora would too if I asked her. We could get you a special… uh, like a special Hyperion-only pass, or something.” He looks at her, finally, eyes shining with hope and confidence in his plan.

Avery wrinkles her nose at him. “No thanks.”

“But Kadara--”

“It’s my home, now. I love-- I love it here. I have a life, I have friends. I don’t want to leave.”

His face immediately falls, smile transforming into a scowl. “How long can you stay here? What if Sloane sees you? What if she takes out the Charlatan and ruins the Collective? Then where will you go?”

The idea of Sloane killing Reyes makes Avery’s stomach turn and she has to swallow hard against the bile that burns the back of her throat. Scott doesn’t know who the Charlatan is.  _ Reyes  _ doesn’t know that Avery knows who the Charlatan is. Secrets within secrets, always. 

She sighs. “Wherever the rest of the Collective goes, I guess.” 

She chews on her lower lip as they both fall silent.

Without the Collective, she’ll be completely on her own against Sloane. She really would have to leave the slums and escape into the badlands. She’ll have to fight to survive even harder than she has been all this time.

Without Reyes, without Kian, without Keema… will she even want to?

Scott is staring at her. He’s saying something.

She interrupts him. “Thanks for the coffee, Scott.”

He snaps his jaw closed and nods. He stands, hesitates as he stares down at her, then turns on his heel and stalks away. He leaves her mug on the counter and takes the still mostly-full thermos with him as he leaves. 

She can’t stop the frustrated tears from falling as soon as she’s alone. She wants to scream. She wants to howl at the walls and demand the Andromeda she was promised. The family, the job, the apartment on Habitat 7, a pet to curl up with her at night.

Instead, what does she have? No family, a brother who can’t accept any decision that she’s ever made since they left the Alliance, a ticking clock on her life on Kadara, a boyfriend who has so many secrets she doesn’t even know where to start at unraveling them.

This isn’t what she wants. This isn’t what she  _ signed up for _ .

\---

Avery’s apartment door doesn’t open when Reyes stands in front of it, the red light of the light blinking stubbornly at him. He frowns and uses his omnitool to input the code he needs to unlock the door and let himself in -- and his frown just deepens.

Her apartment is kind of a mess, which isn’t unusual, but her lights are all out except for her night light glowing faintly on the other end of the room by her bed. He looks at his omnitool again -- it’s past sundown, but not so late that she’d already be asleep. 

His stomach clenches and his skin goes cold. “Avery?” He pitches his voice so she’ll be able to hear it if she’s in the bathroom or in her bed and forces himself to keep worry out of his voice. He drops the food he brought onto the counter and pulls his pistol from its holster at his hip.

He moves through her apartment, slipping into his training from the Alliance to make sure her apartment is clear of threats. Her bathroom, the only room with a door, is empty and as silent as the rest of her apartment. He checks her room next and breathes out a sigh of relief when it’s empty too, save for a figure huddled under the blankets on the bed.

He pulls the blanket away from her face to be sure, then puts his pistol down on the dresser before sitting next to her. She opens her eyes when the mattress dips, and Reyes is ready with a soft smile.

“Are you sick?” He brushes his fingers over her cheek, but his smile slips when they come away wet. 

She pulls away and wipes her face with her own hands. “I’m fine,” she says, too quietly for Reyes to believe her. 

“What happened?” He lets his hand rest on her shoulder instead, and this time she doesn’t pull away.

“Scott wants me to go back to the Nexus.” Avery doesn’t look at him when she speaks, and he hopes she doesn’t notice the way that simple sentence makes his jaw clench. “We fought about it. He’s being a real asshole about it.”

“You… want to stay on Kadara?” Reyes manages to disguise the hope in his voice, but it so rapidly replaces the dread that consumed him when he walked into the apartment that he only manages to transform it into surprise.

Avery responds by rolling away and pulling the blanket back up to her chin. “Obviously.”

She doesn’t particularly like Kadara or Heleus in general, but she wants to  _ stay.  _ She wants to stay… with him? Have they become so close so fast? He doesn’t want her to leave, either, and the relief that her admission -- as grumpy as it was -- inspires in him makes his knees weak.

“Do you want me to leave you alone?” He doesn’t want to, but he doesn’t want to push her if she needs space either. Encounters with her brother up to this point have exhausted her, and sleep will help if she’s been crying long. 

The idea of her crying alone in the dark makes his chest tighten. She should have said something -- he would have come home sooner.

Come… home?

He almost misses her request, so wrapped up in his own thoughts that her quiet words don’t catch his attention at first. 

“Can you just… hold me for a bit?”

“Of course.” His answer is smooth, immediate, and he removes his boots and flight suit with some urgency. When he slips under the blanket with her, she turns to him, tucking her head under his chin and pressing her forehead to his chest. 

He wraps his arms around her, pulling her as close as he can. Her feet slip between his ankles, warm toes pressing against his skin. He kisses the top of her head, lips lingering against her hair for a long moment as he breathes her in.

“Thank you.” Her voice is still little, exhausted. He squeezes her tighter. 

“Don’t thank me,” he says, voice low to match hers. “I’m yours,  _ mi reina _ . Go to sleep.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm only honest when it rains  
> If I time it right, the thunder breaks  
> When I open my mouth.  
> I want to tell you but I don't know how…  
> I want to love you but I don't know how.  
> “Neptune” by Sleeping at Last
> 
> I'm skipping a lot of in-game events that don't directly affect Avery. We all know what Reyes and a non-romancing Ryder get up to around Kadara, and I don't want to write a bunch of game scenes. It's enough to know that their relationship is polite but strained.

With the vault reset, Scott has little that he  _ needs  _ to do on Kadara. Avery makes herself at home in Reyes’ apartment in her brother’s absence, happy to ignore Kadara’s lingering problems with the simple pleasures of domesticity. As the days slip by and blur together, Avery spends more and more nights sleeping in Reyes’ bed rather than her own. After just a few sleepovers, a small night light -- similar to the one by her own bed -- shows up in Reyes’ room without comment from either of them.

It feels… nice. Natural. Like she should have been with him from the start. It feels inevitable, like they would have found each other regardless of the Initiative, its leadership, or the uprising.

It feels like she should have punched Zia in the face like she wanted to all those weeks ago and saved everyone a lot of heartache.

Occasionally, Avery lets herself into his apartment while he’s still off doing whatever it is he does all day -- smuggling work, work for the Collective, or work as the Charlatan -- she never asks and he never offers the information. It’s easier to pretend that secret doesn’t lie between them.

It’s one of these days that see Avery reading on his couch, her legs propped up on the back of it before Reyes gets home. She’s long since given up on an early return and eaten dinner -- and later, an after-dinner snack -- and is ready to give up entirely and just go to bed when she finally hears the tell-tale whirr of the lock disengaging.

Reyes steps into his kitchen with an audible sigh. The door locks behind him and the faucet turns on as he fills a cup. Avery sits up, a retort about his lateness dying on the tip of her tongue as she gets a good look at him.

He’s leaning against the counter, one arm holding himself up as the other clutches his water. She can see even from across the room that the knuckles on that hand are bruised and bloody, the skin split and angry looking. When he finishes his water and lowers his head, their eyes meet, and he goes very, very still.

His hair has fallen out of its usual coif, falling across his forehead in dark curls. There’s a bruise on one of his cheeks from a hit that he allowed to get much too close. Blood is splashed across the front of his flightsuit and across his throat, but it isn’t his.

It’s blue.

“Reyes?”

Her voice seems to shake him from his trance, and he puts his cup down in the sink. He leans against the counter with more of his weight, both hands braced against its cool surface, and stares back at her.

“Are you hurt?” She forces her voice to remain steady, forces herself to stand, forces herself across the room to stand beside him. He watches her every movement with sharp eyes, shaking his head once she reaches him. She reaches up to push his hair away from his face, fingers combing through locks damp with sweat, and sighs softly. “What--” She stops herself from asking what happened. She doesn’t really need to know. “You’re okay?”

“I’m okay.” He closes his eyes at her touch and leans into it even as her hand moves down to brush against his bruise, then lower to the part of his flight suit still damp with blood.

He smells of sour sweat and whiskey, the metallic tang of his blood mixing with the slightly sweeter scent of the turian he’d fought. The combinations turn her stomach, remind her of their first days on Kadara. 

She reaches for the clasps and zippers that hold his suit closed and pulls them open one at a time. He lets her undress him, suit falling crumpled to the floor by the boots he steps out of. Socks, underwear, and undershirt follow in the same way, and for once Reyes leaves them be.

They don’t speak as Avery takes his hand, careful to avoid injured knuckles, and leads him to his bathroom. This is eerily similar to the first night she spent here, taking care of him when he was so sick. It’s quieter, this time, her worry coming from a different place but no less intense for the change.

He watches as she turns the shower on and lets the water get hot while she pulls two clean towels from the cupboard. She undresses then, too, and he watches her movements just as carefully as she strips out of the comfortable clothes she favors. Those she leaves in the sink, then ignores Reyes’ furrowed brow by ushering him into the shower stall to stand under the spray that’s already steaming up the room.

It’s a tight fit in the shower, but she squeezes herself in front of him. His fingers flex, but he doesn’t reach out for her. Instead, he stands silent as she lathers up the special angaran soap he uses and starts to wash the blood from his skin.

He bends his head when she reaches up to wash the sweat from his hair, his forehead resting against hers. She hides her shaking hands in his hair, staring up at him even as he keeps his eyes squeezed shut. He tilts his head up when she directs him to with a soft tug, rinsing the soap from his hair and letting it swirl down the drain between their feet.

He licks his lips and parts them, but falls silent when she simply reaches behind him to switch off the water. The sudden loss of heat makes him shiver, and she puts one steadying hand on his chest as she steps away to grab the towels.

She lets him dry himself off at least, taking the time to dry herself at the same time. Unsupervised, Reyes takes the opportunity to draw Avery into his arms, his hands on the damp skin of her back, his face buried in her hair. She steps into his embrace, letting her towel fall heedlessly to pool around their feet. Her hands rest on the small of his back, over the two little dimples there, and he tugs her as close as physically possible.

“Rey?” She speaks directly into his chest, voice muffled against him, and he answers by tipping her head back so he can slot his mouth over hers.

Her fingers dig into his back and she arches up onto her toes so she can kiss him harder, a little groan slipping free of her throat.

He bends down and scoops her up with his hands on the back of her thighs, surprising a squeak and then a self-conscious chuckle out of her even though their lips never separate. He carries her to the bed, letting her rest against the pillows before following her.

He fits between her thighs with an ease born of practice, forehead resting against hers for few heartbeats before he tips his head and kisses her again. She parts her lips for him, her fingers tangled in his hair, her heels hooked behind his knees as he presses his hips to hers.

Her head swims and she breaks their kiss to draw in a breath, but Reyes just moves to press his lips to her jaw, then to the sensitive skin of her neck. She sighs at the sensation of his mouth working against her, the noise almost a moan, and he nips at her collarbone before letting her guide him back to her lips.

They can’t pull away from each other. He lets her breathe by moving his kisses to her neck or her throat, the taste of soap slowly transforming into the taste of  _ Avery _ , of sweat and desire and home, as she moans and rocks under him. She won’t release him to move farther away than that, her hands always in his hair or on his back, short fingernails little pinpricks of pain in the sea of pleasure between them.

When it becomes too much, he rests his head in the crook of her neck and reaches between them to guide his cock between her folds and deep inside of her. They both groan at the sensation of their joining -- Avery’s into the cool air of his apartment, Reyes against her skin.

“Please,” she murmurs, twisting so she can kiss the side of his head. “Rey, please.” She runs her hands over his back and across his shoulders as he holds himself so very still inside of her. He trembles, and she holds him closer, tugging his body against hers until she can’t tell where she stops and he starts. “ _ Please. _ ”

He presses his lips to hers again and begins to rock against her, barely withdrawing before pressing deep inside her once more. She rocks her hips in tandem with his, grinding her clit against his pelvis each time he completely fills her. Her toes curl and her nails scratch his back as she desperately tries to tug him closer.

“Avery,  _ mi reina _ …” When kissing becomes too much, Reyes rests his forehead against hers. His eyes stay open even as hers stay closed, watching as she bites at her lower lip and pants at the sensations flooding her body. “I… thank you.”

His words make her whimper and the rhythm of her hips against his falters for a few thrusts until she finds it again. One of her hands slips up to the back of his head, gripping at the short hairs there, holding him against her. Her thighs tremble around him, her body doing its best to undo him as he tries to do the same to her.

She tilts her head back as her orgasm washes over her, and Reyes captures her lips in a final, bruising kiss as he hurdles over the edge after her with a few unsteady thrusts and a final deep grind of his hips that makes her whine into his kiss.

Reyes collapses onto her, letting almost all of his weight rest on her chest. She locks her ankles behind his back, keeping him close, keeping him deep inside of her as she gasps through the tears threatening to spill from her eyes.

He’s barely spoken a word since he walked into the apartment hours after she was expecting him, but she  _ knows _ , deep down, that something’s different now. Something has changed between them. He did something that should have frightened her away, and instead…

He tries to pull away, but she tugs him back against her. He shifts so that his arms are under her, holding her as much as she’s holding him, and relaxes again.

She shouldn’t stay with him. She should see if Scott can make good on that offer to get her back on the Hyperion, but… she doesn’t want to. 

She wants to stay.

When she releases Reyes from her embrace, he rolls to the side without hesitation, watching in silence as she returns to the bathroom to clean herself. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed when she returns, elbows on his knees, staring at the abrasions on his knuckles.

She pauses by the room divider and watches him until he glances up and catches her staring. 

“Need to talk about it?” He blinks at her, once, as he considers. Then he shakes his head. That apprehension is back in his eyes, the stiffness from the kitchen back in his shoulders. Avery nods and walks back over to him, detouring to find the almost-empty tin of medigel to toss to him. He catches it and scoops out enough to smooth over his hands. They’ll likely be healed by morning.

She sits next to him, silent, then leans over to kiss his cheek when he’s finished. He turns his head at the last moment and catches her lips, and she smiles against him.

“Come on.”  She tugs him until he climbs into the bed with her, under the blankets this time, and she cuddles against his side with her head on his chest. He rests his chin on the top of her head and runs his fingers through her hair until he feels her relax against him.

“Avery?”

“Hmm?” She’s almost asleep, and he can hear it in the little sound she makes.

“Thank you.”

She stirs against him, but gives up whatever movement she was trying to do almost immediately. Instead, she pats his chest where her hand rests. “I trust you, Rey.” Her words are mumbled, hard to understand, and a little snore punctuates the end of her sentence.

He stays awake, staring at the ceiling. 

She doesn’t deserve this. The secrets, the evasions, the outright lies when necessary. She’s been so patient over the weeks, waiting without question as he works to maneuver Scott and the Collective into a position to take control of Kadara Port. It’s almost time to make his move; the last piece is in place now, after tonight.

After Sloane is dead… then, he can tell her the truth. She  _ trusts  _ him. If she still trusts him after he admits his lie…

Well. If she doesn’t, she has somewhere else to go. She has her brother, and she’ll be safe from Sloane if she decides to stay. All of Kadara will be safe from Sloane, whether she stays with him or not.

He stays awake long into the night, counting the minutes as they pass by and listening to Avery’s soft snores and sleepy mumbles in the near-darkness, all possibilities and contingencies circling through his mind.

This has to be  _ perfect.  _ For himself, for Kadara, and for  _ her. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle up, babes.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When my time comes around  
> Lay me gently in the cold dark earth  
> No grave can hold my body down  
> I’ll crawl home to her  
> “Work Song” by Hozier
> 
> It's the one you've been waiting for.

Scott glares at Sloane’s email on the terminal in his room.  _ We need to talk,  _ says the subject line;  _ come to Kadara ASAP,  _ says the body. He drums his fingers on the top of the desk, chewing on the already-raw inside of his lip. 

He hasn’t made a secret of his disdain for the planet and its people. He got in, reset the monoliths and the vault, solved the murders, found too many dead bodies and almost-dead people suffering from the after-effects of the toxic water, Oblivion overdose, or both, and played too nice with his twin’s shifty  _ as fuck  _ boyfriend in an effort to convince her to leave the damned planet and come back to the Hyperion where she belongs.

She shouldn’t even be awake. The Scourge that fucked everything else up in Heleus ruined that too. Instead of waking up after Scott and Alec had found a home for them on Habitat 7, she woke up in time to almost starve to death on the Nexus. That would fuck anyone up, but it seemed to hit her especially hard.

But, still. Exile? She should have just gone back into cryo when they gave her a chance. It would have saved her a lot of pain -- both emotional and physical, based on the scars and the limp she sometimes has.

And now? Now she won’t leave Kadara because she doesn’t want to leave Reyes, which is bullshit because the man is obviously hiding something. He’s a smuggler, claiming free agency while simultaneously being clearly against the things Sloane has done to the port to retain control.

Not that Scott particularly agrees with the things Sloane does, but at least she isn’t getting him to murder her exes for him. If that isn’t the biggest red flag Scott has ever seen from one of Avery’s partners, he doesn’t know what is. 

The last time he accepted an invitation to Kadara, it was to attend Sloane’s part with Reyes. Reyes snuck off to steal some whiskey -- again,  _ shady as fuck  _ \-- while Scott and Sloane spent a few minutes with surprisingly casual banter. The problems began when Scott tracked Reyes down, still pawing through Sloane’s belongings, and in order to give them a reason to be in there, Scott punched Reyes in the stomach.

It was just to make him bend over and groan convincingly, not actually vomit on Scott’s boots. It had caused a very early end to the evening and earned him a somewhat screechy lecture from Avery about getting along with Reyes.

Now he’s just supposed to redirect the Tempest to the asshole of Heleus for -- what? Because Sloane called him? He’s told her before he’s not a lapdog, but here he is, expected to come when called.

It chafes. It chafes in the exact same spot that the Pathfinder title chafes, burning constantly at the back of his mind. He types up a denial, stares at it for a long moment, then erases the message and tries again.

_ > To: S. Kelly _ _   
_ _ > From: S. Ryder _

_ > The Tempest will dock on Kadara in three hours. _

\---

Despite Sloane’s scathing words, Scott feels for her as she explains that the Charlatan -- that the Collective Avery so adamantly defends -- nearly killed Kaetus in an effort to get Sloane’s attention. She’s obviously furious that he was hurt, but, even more than that, she’s worried about him. She’s  _ afraid _ he’s going to die. 

She wants to destroy the people responsible, and Scott can’t blame her for one second. If someone did that to Cora to get to him?

Absolutely not.

So he agrees to help, despite the barbs Sloane throws at him. He doesn’t rise to the challenge, not this time. He just nods and bites his tongue and messages Vetra and Drack -- his go-to team for Kadara, given their histories -- to meet him at the lift down into the slums while he instructs Gil and Kallo to get the Nomad ready and delivered to the regular drop point in the badlands.

“Should we check in with Reyes?” Vetra’s tone is careful as she makes her veiled suggestion, and when Scott glances up at her, she’s already gazing up to the second level of the slums where Reyes usually spends his time in that sticky nightclub. “He might know something about what the Collective is up to.”

Scott doesn’t slow at her suggestion, even when she turns her bright gaze on him. “I’d rather get to Draulir before the Charlatan murders Sloane,” he says, turning to face forward again. Drack grunts next to him, heavy footsteps echoing in the cave. Scott can’t tell if the grunt is in agreement with him or with Vetra. “We won’t get a straight answer out of him anyway.”

Vetra doesn’t say anything else as she follows him through the checkpoint between the slums and the rest of Kadara. Scott trades nods with the Warden, remembering the help the krogan gave him when he was searching for Remi Tamayo, and walks with his hand on his pistol until they’re all safely locked in the Nomad.

At least Kadara smells better now. Just a bit.

He has SAM send Avery a message as they drive, composing it silently while Vetra and Drack chat in the backseat about raising Sid and Kesh. He lets Avery know, in the vaguest of terms, that he’s on his way to a meeting between Sloane and the Charlatan, but he’ll stop by before leaving the planet again.

She doesn’t respond in the few minutes between SAM’s confirmation that the message was received and when he parks the Nomad at the base of the hill indicated by Sloane’s nav point.

The climb to the cave mouth is silent, and he’s greeted by Sloane’s glowering face as soon as he crests the ridge. He lifts his chin in greeting and she curls her lip back at him, utterly unimpressed with his position, weapons, or with the companions he has at his back.

“You took your sweet time,” she snaps, and Scott catches his lip curling up in time to stop from baring his teeth at her. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

It’s best to just… grin and bear it. To just think about what his dad would do and try to do it himself: get the damn job done and get it done right.

“I’m with you,” Scott says, and he’s absolutely certain she can hear the strain in his voice that always appears when he’s forcing himself to be nice to someone who drives him up the wall. His mom was the diplomatic one in the family. He and Avery both inherited their dad’s hotheadedness -- but suggesting that to Avery is as likely to earn him a punch to the solar plexus than anything else.

Sloane turns on her heel with a little puff of yellowish dirt and stalks into the Draulir cave. Vetra and Drack move to follow her, but Scott stills them with a sharp wave of his hand.

“If the Charlatan wanted to kill her outright, he would have done it while she was waiting for us,” he says. Vetra’s mandibles flutter and then tuck tight against her cheeks as she swallows whatever she wants to say; Scott ignores it. “I’ll keep the comms open just in case. SAM, alert them if anything happens and I can’t speak, okay?”

“ _ Of course, Pathfinder. _ ” 

Scott lets their silence count as agreement and turns to follow Sloane into the dark of the cave, jogging lightly to catch up to her before she gets too far away, and as soon as he reaches her side, she picks up the pace until they reach some predefined meeting point that seems to be the confluence of three tunnels.

He scans the shadows and crosses his arms over his chest as he moves so that Sloane is on his left and one of the stone walls is to his back. With Drack and Vetra guarding the entrance to the cave, he only has to worry about a surprise from the other two tunnels, but the feeling of being watched from the shadows makes the little hairs on the nape of his neck stand on end.

Sloane’s impatience is shining through in the tense set of her jaw, the way her fingers are tapping against the pistol on her hip, and the way her mismatched eyes are constantly sweeping the area.

The unpleasant feeling that began growing in his chest at Sloane’s email suddenly blooms into stomach-clenching dread immediately before an all-too-familiar voice speaks from one of the darker corners of the cave.

“You look like you’re waiting for someone.”

Scott and Sloane both turn towards Reyes as he descends from the shadows, stepping forward on a rock formation that the sunlight doesn’t quite reach. The edges of Scott’s vision go white for a moment as the pieces click into place, and he curls his hands into fists.

Sloane doesn’t get it. “I’m here for the Charlatan, not for some third-rate smuggler,” she snaps, accent growing sharper in her irritation. Reyes barely glances at Scott, instead blinking wide eyes at the current ruler of Kadara Port.

“They’re one and the same.” Scott heaves a heavy sigh as he finishes speaking, and both Sloane and Reyes finally look at him. Sloane has a wide-eyed look of shock that quickly melts into fury, her nostrils flaring as she holds herself back from launching herself at Reyes, fists flying. Reyes’ face is harder to interpret; whatever’s reflecting out of his eyes not quite matching the smirk on his face.

“Surprise,” Reyes says, turning his attention back to Sloane. 

Scott sets his jaw to avoid saying anything that might give Sloane more information about Avery. As far as Sloane knows, Avery has been in the badlands for months -- Scott reaching over to break Reyes’ jaw for lying to all of them  _ might  _ set off a few alarms for Sloane.

His silence doesn’t bother Sloane. All of her focus narrows in on the smuggler before them, eyes wide and voice hard. “You said you wanted to  _ settle things _ ,” she says, and even Scott can hear the air quotes around settle things. “How?”

Reyes hops off of the rock he’s been perched on and saunters closer, confidence dripping from his every movement. Scott curls his lip but doesn’t bother commenting. “A duel,” Reyes says, and Scott snaps his attention back up to Reyes’ face. “You and me. Right now. Winner takes Kadara Port.” He glances at Scott again, that same strange expression on his face. Scott ignores it.

“You want to avoid war by  _ shooting  _ each other?” What is this, a shitty old western vid? They’re going to walk to ten paces and leave the future of the planet up to whoever’s trigger finger is the fastest? He’d laugh if he wasn’t so sure Reyes is deadly serious.

“Two people shooting each other is better than a lot of people shooting each other,” Reyes points out, not unreasonably, but all Scott can think about is that Avery has been living with this man for months and he never bothered to tell her he’s the Charlatan? Or Avery never bothered to tell  _ Scott  _ that Reyes is the Charlatan -- and which is worse, in this exact moment?

“I’ll take those terms,” Sloane says, flexing her fingers above her pistol. Scott throws his hands up and takes a step back, out of shooting range, and glares at the pair of them.

None of this is necessary. All of this is  _ fucking insane. _

Sloane and Reyes start to circle each other, sizing each other up, falling so easily into the steps that Scott has time to wonder exactly how common duels are on Kadara before SAM speaks up on their private channel.

“ _ Sniper, _ ” SAM says, and Scott’s eyes snap to the darkest part of the cave, near where Reyes had been hiding when they entered. Light reflects off of something, probably the sniper’s scope. “ _ His sights are set on Sloane. _ ”

This was never going to be a fair fight. Reyes was planning a  _ murder. _

Scott leaps in the same second that Sloane finally raises her gun. “Sniper!” he yells, instinct guiding him as he tackles Sloane to the ground. The sniper’s round ricochets off of the stone above his head, and the round Sloane fired as they fell strikes Reyes’ hand.

The Charlatan drops his gun and turns to abandon his sniper without even one moment of hesitation. “Damn it, cover me!”

“Shoot him!”

Scott scrambles to his feet, leaving Sloane to face the sniper, trusting SAM to call Drack and Vetra in to help. He draws his own pistol and gives chase to Reyes, skidding around a bend in the cave that empties out onto a ledge high above a canyon below. A back entrance, an escape route, as though the Charlatan would have anything less.

He takes aim and fires, aiming for the center of Reyes’ back but striking him in the shoulder instead. He takes another shot, striking Reyes again, and watches silently as the man tumbles over the ledge and falls with a spray of blood into the abyss.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the West was won this way  
> But God forgive the heartless way we let  
> It all burn down  
> “Alright” by Keaton Henson

_ > To: A. Rossi _ _   
_ _ > From: S. Ryder _

_ > Finally meeting your pal the charlatan today. Apparently he requested a meeting with Slone via Kaetus’ unconscious body. Will see you after. _

No.

Absolutely not.

There has to be some mistake -- doesn’t there?

Surely Reyes wouldn’t challenge Sloane directly like that -- and surely he wouldn’t tell Scott? Why would Sloane reach out to the Pathfinder with how much she hates the Initiative? If this is all an elaborate joke, she’s never  _ ever  _ going to talk to Scott again, no matter what she promised their mother about  _ staying a family. _

She tries to call him back as soon as she reads his message, but he doesn’t pick up. He doesn’t answer on her next three tries either -- did he wait until he was walking into the meeting to contact her? -- and Reyes ignores her calls too.

He’s been gone for  _ hours.  _ Whatever he planned for Sloane, whatever he’s been working on these last few week that culminated in, if she’s putting the pieces together correctly, beating Kaetus last night and coming home with the turian’s blood on his face only to leave before she woke up in order to meet with Sloane, had taken him from their bed well before she awoke.

There’s no way this is a peaceful meeting over brunch.

She tries to call him again.

He still doesn’t answer.

Tears are pricking at her eyes as she dresses and shoves her feet back into her boots without tying the laces. She grabs one of the datapads she’s brought over and then forgotten, setting it up to say  _ Vidal, call me ASAP  _ as soon as it’s picked up before propping it up in the kitchen where he’s sure to see it.

She runs out of his apartment, jogging through the slums toward her own little-used apartment. She tries to call Keema this time, and then Kian, but neither of them answers either. At any other time, this wouldn’t worry her. Kian does tend to sleep late and Keema rarely uses her omnitool when she’s around Sloane or another important member of the Outcasts.

Except…

Sloane is somewhere with Scott. They’re somewhere with  _ Reyes. _

She stands in the center of her apartment and runs her fingers into her hair, gripping tightly at the roots in a desperate attempt to hold in the panic she can feel threatening to overwhelm her. Tears prick at her eyes as she tries to figure out where Reyes would ask for a meeting and if she can make it out there, if she’s strong enough to make it all the way into the badlands to help.

A knock echoes through her apartment, and she catches her breath as she freezes in place, hands still in her hair. The knock sounds again, louder this time, as though someone is banging on her door with an armored fist. 

“Avery? Are you in there?”

It isn’t Reyes or Scott -- she can tell that right away. She recognizes the woman’s voice in a vague way, which means they’ve met but it isn’t Sloane or Keema. Avery takes a chance and opens the door only to see Cora Harper standing  with her hand raised to knock again and Peebee rocking on her toes a few feet away.

As soon as the door swishes open, they both sweep into her apartment. Peebee remains silent, a surprisingly grim look on her normally happy face, as Cora fixes Avery with a serious gaze.

“We just heard from Scott,” Cora says, all business. Avery freezes. “We need to get you off of Kadara.”

Avery looks from Cora to Peebee and back, blood running cold. “Why?”

The glance Cora and Peebee exchange is enough to make Avery’s knees weak. She’d collapse right onto the floor if she could move at all. 

“The Charlatan is dead.” Cora’s voice is flat, emotionless. She doesn’t know who the Charlatan is, nor his relationship to Avery. “The Collective is… compromised.” She pauses for a moment, the fingers of one hand drumming on her pistol. “We need to get you  out of the port.”

When Ellen sat her down to explain the cancer that had invaded her brain and spinal cord all those years ago, Avery felt sick. She was dizzy, the room spun around her like she’d had too much to drink, and she broke out in a cold sweat. She couldn’t understand what her mother had done to deserve this, and she didn’t understand why it would happen to her.

Now? Now, Avery feels sick, and dizzy, and the room spins like she’s had too much to drink, and she can feel a cold sweat breaking out on her skin. She blinks hard and puts her hands back in her hair. Peebee takes several steps closer and reaches out for Avery as though afraid she’s going to fall.

“What happened to him?” Is that her voice? It’s too high and shaky -- surely that’s someone else speaking. Cora and Peebee don’t answer fast enough, Avery raises her voice and demands an answer. “ _ What happened? _ ”

This is the first time that Cora has shown emotion. Her facade cracks as she exchanges a glance with Peebee, both of them clearly sensing that there’s more to the story than either of them was told.

“Scott didn’t tell us.” This from Peebee, who’s looking everywhere but at Avery right now. “We just have to  _ go. _ ”

“I can’t, I have to--”

Cora cuts her off with a firm voice. “We don’t have time. You have to be on the Tempest in half an hour.” She takes two steps forward and grasps Avery’s arm, gently tugging until her fingers fall free of her hair. When Avery doesn’t pull away, Cora gentles her voice and adds, “You can contact Reyes from the ship.”

At the mention of Reyes’ name, Avery’s eyes well with tears. She doesn’t move to wipe them away, letting them fall down her cheeks to drip off her chin. Cora’s eyebrows draw together, then she gasps softly as the pieces fall into place.

“Peebee, grab her stuff and meet us on the ship. Please.” Cora adds the  _ please  _ when she sees Peebee open her mouth to object, her eyes wide and glancing from Avery’s stricken face to Peebee’s. 

Peebee huffs, but nods and moves off to start picking up clothes from the floor and datapads from the various flat surfaces they’d been left on wherever Avery happened to be standing when she was done with them.

Cora tugs on Avery’s arm, only pulling just enough until Avery starts to follow in a daze. One of her boots flops from her foot with each step, the laces much too loose from her run, but none of them stop to fix it. Avery just follows Cora out of her apartment, through the slums, and into the lift, both of them ignoring the curious looks they receive from the few people actually out and about in the middle of the morning.

If any of them recognize Avery, none of them mention it in the face of a straight-backed Initiative soldier in full armor. They just let Avery be taken away from her whole life, drawn out of the slums with no comfort in the cramped elevator, and then pushed even faster through the market until she’s inside the airlock of the Tempest.

Avery doesn’t react as Cora pauses to greet a salarian, doesn’t speak to another asari, doesn’t make any movements of her own until Cora drags her up a ramp and then pushes her down onto a rounded couch. Then she folds in on herself, pulling her knees to her chest so she can rest her face on them, wrapping her arms over her head to shield herself from the people watching her.

Their voices seem too far away and too close at once. Peebee arrives and there’s a soft thump on the floor next to her as Peebee drops a duffle bag full of all of Avery’s earthly possessions next to her. Avery still doesn’t move, even as she hears Peebee loudly asking what’s wrong with her. The voices suddenly go very quiet, Cora taking charge to pull everyone away.

The ship goes silent when the airlock opens once more. Three sets of heavy armored footsteps enter, and a man’s voice orders Kallo to take off immediately. The ship roars to life underneath them, and Avery lifts her head in recognition.

She uncoils herself from the couch and stalks down the stairs, pushing past an open-mouthed Peebee and a suspiciously silent Cora, following the noises back through a room and a hallway she doesn’t remember until she comes face to face with Scott on the other side of a double door.

His shoulders sag when he sees her. “Avery. You’re safe.”

She clenches her hands into fists at her side. “What the fuck did you do?”

Scott flinches away from her like he’s been struck, but the expression is gone just as quickly as it came. He clenches his jaw and glances over his shoulder at Vetra and the oldest krogan Avery’s ever seen before putting his hands on Avery’s shoulders to guide her back down the hallway.

She slaps his hands away. “Don’t touch me! Don’t you touch me!” She takes a step back, voice rising. “What did you  _ do? _ ”

Scott follows her and she continues backing away until they’re out of the hallway and in an open room with a large table in the center of it. She stands her ground now, body vibrating with tension, and stares Scott down even as various doors open and more crew members find their way to the spectacle. The ship’s engines thrum and there’s a jerk before the inertia dampeners kick in, but the void in Avery’s chest grows. They’re leaving Kadara.

They’re leaving her  _ home _ .

“What  _ happened  _ out there?” She’s still yelling. Curious eyes stare at her from behind Scott and from open doors and behind low railings. “What happened to Reyes?”

Silence reigns for a moment as Scott’s jaw clenches. “You knew.”

“Of course I knew!” Avery throws her hands up and bares her teeth in a barely-contained snarl. “What did Sloane do to him?”

Scott doesn’t seem eager to answer her questions, so he asks one of his own. “Why didn’t you tell me he was the Charlatan?” Murmurs rumble through the gathered observers, but a sharp glare from Scott quiets them before Avery can hear their words. It doesn’t matter. Only  _ this _ matters.

“It wasn’t exactly my secret to tell,  _ Scott _ .” She spits his name and takes another step away from him. Her voice gets higher with each sentence even as Scott’s gets lower. “Why would it matter? What happened today?”

“He beat Kaetus almost to death, you know,” Scott says, tilting his head to the side as he studies Avery’s reaction. “He left a note on Kaetus’ body challenging Sloane to a duel, dragged us out to a cave, and then set up a sniper to shoot her when her attention was on him.”

Another wave of ice cold washes over Avery, but she doesn’t let it show. “So what?” she snaps. “I told you everything she did. I would have killed her myself if I could.”

“He was going to  _ murder her  _ to take over Kadara Port!” Scott’s anger is reaching his boiling point, volume raising to meet Avery’s. His hands are balled into fists too, though he isn’t shaking like Avery is. “I couldn’t let him cheat his way into power like that! If he’s willing to do that to Sloane, what would he have done to you?”

“He wouldn’t have done anything to me!” Avery’s words echo around the ship, and she takes a step forward this time, unable to stay still in the face of her fury. “You can _ not  _ compare killing a woman like Sloane to anything else.”

“He had me kill Zia!” Scott’s hands are up in the air now, gesticulating wildly to help punctuate his sentences. “He’d have you killed too if you got in his way.”

Avery doesn’t even hesitate. “Good! I’d’ve killed that bitch myself too given half a chance.”

Scott’s mouth hangs open. “What happened to you?”

She ticks off events on her fingers. “I almost suffocated to death, the Nexus leadership almost killed me, and then I lived on Kadara Port for nine months!” She points to the front of the ship like that’s still her way to get back onto Kadara. “I’ve been fighting for my life this entire time. What happened to  _ you? _ ”

“I can’t talk to you when you’re like this,” Scott snaps, starting to turn away.

“Oh, you’re  _ just  _ like Dad,” Avery scoffs, crossing her arms over her chest. She’s still shaking. “No wonder you got Cora to fuck you.”

Scott turns back to her and the crowd around them shifts. “Do  _ not  _ talk about Cora,” Scott hisses.

“What happened at the duel, Scott?” Avery doesn’t care how angry he is or whether or not Cora heard her words. She needs to know what happened to Reyes.

Scott’s snarling too now, the twins facing off in the middle of the ship like it’s a battlefield. “He challenged her to a duel and had his sniper set up in the shadows. I saw the sniper, knocked Sloane out of the way, and she fired on Reyes.”

The room spins around her. “She killed him?”

Scott shakes his head. “He ran.”

“So… he escaped?” Her voice cracks on the word  _ escape  _ as hope blossoms. Scott shakes his head once more and her vision goes white as hope is replaced with raw fury. “You chased him?  _ You  _ shot him?”

“Yes.” 

The one little word is like igniting a powderkeg. Avery howls and launches herself at Scott, using her biotics to help her charge. Scott raises one hand and activates his barrier, and she crashes into it with a shower of blue sparks that make everyone around them start yelling at once. Hands grab her arms but she shakes them off and lands a punch in the center of Scott’s chest that makes his breath leave him in a rush.

She tries again, this time using her biotics to lift and then throw him across the room, but his activate in response and she tumbles back instead. He follows her, fists raised, but then Cora is between them, one hand on each of their chests to hold them apart. Peebee is there, her cool hands on Avery’s elbows, pulling back, and the other asari is pulling Scott away too.

Avery screams and tries to pull away, but Peebee curses and tightens her grip, using a stasis field to hold Avery in place. It doesn’t stop her from flailing and it doesn’t stop her from screaming until Scott lets Cora lead him away.

“Avery, my name is Lexi T’Perro.” The other asari is in front of her now, a serious expression on her face. “I need you to come down into the medbay with me.” Avery stops fighting Peebee’s surprisingly strong grip on her arms and sags instead. Lexi smiles slightly. “There you are. I can give you a sedative if you’d like, just to help you calm down more.”

A sedative? Avery nods dumbly, tears she didn’t know she was crying dripping off of her chin. Peebee releases her and Lexi grasps her arm right away, tugging much the way Cora had on their walk to the Tempest. She lets Lexi lead her through the little ship, down a lift and then up a ramp until they reach the medbay, and accepts the little pill she offers without further complaint.

\---

Scott sinks onto the couch in his room as soon as the door closes behind him. He covers his face with shaking hands, ignoring the pain radiating from his split lip and the bruise on his chest, and tries to control his breathing. Cora follows him but doesn’t sit, standing by the large windows to look out at the stars flying by.

“SAM,” Scott says aloud, voice surprisingly steady. “Do you have access to Avery’s omnitool?”

Cora turns around to look at Scott, then over at the little SAM-node on Scott’s desk. The globe lights up as SAM processes the question, then his voice echoes through the room.

“ _ Yes; however, it is registered to Antonia Rossi, another exile. _ ”

Scott scrubs his hands down his face and makes eye contact with Cora. “Can you assign it to her real name, please? Transfer important files over.”

Another pause. Does SAM disapprove or is that Scott’s conscience arguing with him that he’s made a mistake? That he’s made a dozen mistakes since receiving Sloane’s email and a desperate warning that he’s going to make more mistakes before he’s able to go to sleep again?

“ _ Done. _ ”

“And block contact between her omnitool and ones on Kadara. I don’t… want Sloane tracking her down.” Even Cora frowns at this one. Scott closes his eyes against her expression, but SAM works regardless of their opinions on Scott’s actions. “Thanks, SAM.”

“ _ You’re welcome, Pathfinder. _ ”

Oh, SAM definitely disapproves. He hasn’t called Scott anything other than  _ Scott  _ in months.

“What are you doing, Scott?” This from Cora now, her voice gentle even though her question is harsh. 

Scott doesn’t look at her. “Sloane knew Avery was hiding in the slums,” he says. “She had her people follow me there the other day and was just waiting for the right time to get her. Apparently,” Scott’s voice is dripping with derision now, and he finally looks up to make eye contact, “she was very well protected by  _ Collective agents _ , and Sloane didn’t want to piss them off. Or me, interestingly enough. She’s going to let us put an outpost in the badlands if we can get enough volunteers. She just… she gave me an hour to get Avery off of  _ her  _ planet.”

“Even after you killed Reyes for her?” Again, Cora’s voice is carefully devoid of emotion. 

Scott heaves a great sigh. “I… he was going to murder her, Cora.”

Cora pauses before asking, “Was leaving Sloane in control of Kadara better than letting Reyes kill her?”

Scott shrugs and starts to lower his head into his hands again. “It doesn’t matter now, does it? I shot him, and Avery is never going to forgive me.”

Cora finally steps forward to stand between his legs. Scott reaches for her, wrapping his arms around her thighs to keep her in place as he rests his head against her stomach. She holds him against her, carding her fingers through his hair as he draws in ragged breaths.

They’ve sat like this before, when Scott’s duties threatened to overwhelm him. She comforted him like this after they rescued the Moshae and he mourned the angara lost in the facility. She comforted him like this when he realized Avery was on Kadara instead of still in cryo like Tann and Addison had led him to believe. And she’s comforting him now as he struggles with yet another split-second decision that cost lives.

“It’ll get easier, sweetheart,” she says. “I promise.”


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don’t care if he’s guilty, don’t care if he’s not  
> He’s good and he’s bad and he’s all that I’ve got   
> Oh Lord, oh Lord, I’m begging you please  
> Don’t take that sinner from me  
> “Devil’s Backbone” by Civil Wars

Avery’s stomach is already sour before she wakes up. Her neck is sore from the way she was sleeping curled up in a tight ball, and she stretches out her limbs before she opens her eyes and stares out into the darkness of her…

Of…

Her cryo pod?

Cold panic washes through her, making the sourness in her stomach roil. She flings herself from the cushion she’d been sleeping on, heading straight for the one source of light in the room: a small green circle that indicates an unlocked door.

She moves faster than its automatic sensors, and she crashes into the metal surface with a hollow bang and a muffled cry. She tries again, fingernails scratching at it in a desperate attempt to pry it open before the door moves on its own, and she spills out into a wide-open, fully illuminated cargo bay.

She falls to her knees just a step outside the door, shaking and blinking against the light and trying to fight back the nausea that always follows a dream like the one she’s having. This cargo bay looks eerily familiar, even full as it is. Has she been here before?

“Whoa, whoa -- you’re safe here.” A voice she doesn’t recognize comes from her left, and she twists around with wide eyes to see a man kneeling several feet away from her, his hands out and palm-up to show he’s unarmed. He grins at her, a little lopsided, and she blinks at him from her crouch. “You’re on the Tempest,” he continues, “you spent the night here and just woke up. My name’s Liam.”

Avery clears her throat and swallows hard before she can speak. “Avery,” she croaks, then grimaces at the pain in her throat. She clears her throat again and stands slowly. Liam echoes her movements, stretching to his full height though he doesn’t try to come any closer. He’s not wearing a shirt. “Where--”

She trails off again as she sees more people watching her. Cora’s frowning from the other side of the cargo bay, though she’s mostly hidden behind what looks like a large MAKO. A purple angara is peering at her from a catwalk on the second level, Peebee at his side. Footsteps preface the appearance of another human man, and he leans casually against the railing before giving her a little wave.

She tears her eyes away and looks back at Liam, who’s lowered his hands.

“We’re in the Tefano system,” Liam says. “We stopped on our way back to the Nexus. Your brother, Vetra, and Drack are on a mission, and then we’ll be back to the Nexus in a day or two.” His expression doesn’t change even as Avery’s darkens into a scowl.

“I can’t go back to the Nexus.”

Liam shrugs. “I think Scott has a plan for that, but we haven’t talked about it.” There’s a pause then, as everyone waits for someone else to be the first to speak. Liam rises to the challenge. “Are you hungry? I can make you breakfast.”

Avery just stares at him, nose wrinkled in confusion.

He doesn’t seem upset by her silence. “If you’re not hungry, I can make you tea or coffee. I’m sure you’re thirsty after everything.”

He’s… not wrong about that, even if she doesn’t exactly trust him yet. She vaguely remembers him watching that fight with her brother, standing half out of a doorway with wide eyes and jaw slack. He hadn’t moved to help her, but he hadn’t tried to pull her off of Scott either.

Plus… coffee.

“Yeah,” she croaks. “Coffee. Thanks, uh, Liam.”

His grin widens into something that feels a little more genuine, and Avery follows him when he starts to walk away. No one else speaks to them as they make their way through the cargo bay and down a hallway to a little kitchen, though she hears them start to whisper to each other as soon as she’s out of sight.

“Make yourself at home,” Liam says, heading straight to the little coffee maker sitting on the counter. He waves one hand at the table tucked into the corner, and Avery settles on the edge of one of the chairs. “Bathroom’s across the hall if you need it. PeeBee brought your stuff in, but I don’t know where she left it. I’ll find out for you, though.”

Avery props her elbows up on the table and rubs at her dry eyes with both hands. She doesn’t know what to say to Liam and she doesn’t remember much of what happened last night after her fight with Scott since that doctor gave her some sort of sedative that, apparently, knocked her out until a whole night-cycle went past.

Liam falls silent, giving her the space she needs to consider everything that’s happened to her. The only sound in the kitchen is the coffee maker trying to heat up the water Liam poured into it.

The relative silence lets Avery come up with an immediate plan: contact Keema and, if she’s still alive, let her know what happened. Avery can’t return to Kadara, but maybe Keema has friends on other planets that have jobs Avery can do. It seems far fetched, but aside from running away to join the  _ other  _ exiles on Elaaden…

She has no other options, at least none that immediately spring to mind.

She pulls up her omnitool’s interface and goes right to the messages before realizing something’s wrong. There’s no record of her last calls to her chosen family on Kadara, no record of the notes she’s received from Reyes over the last months, nothing at all from her time as Antonia Rossi on Kadara.

Instead, there are dozens of messages from Scott, all dated from before his first arrival on Kadara. There are a handful from Nira, her old lover, and -- when she scrolls to the oldest unread messages -- one from Sloane.

She stares at the name on the interface with dread making her mouth dry.

“What happened to my omnitool?” she demands, looking up at Liam where he’s pretending not to watch her from near the sink.

He shakes his head at her and shrugs one shoulder. “Is there something wrong with it? SAM can take a look -- SAM?”

SAM’s disembodied voice comes from Liam’s omnitool in answer. “ _ Hello again, Avery. Your omnitool has been reset to your own identity. All messages and files have been preserved in the archive. _ ” 

Avery’s fingers zip over to the archive and she sags in her seat when, true to SAM’s word, all of Reyes’ old messages are saved there. She breathes out a sigh of relief even as her eyes well with tears, and she hastily dashes them away before they can fall. 

She doesn’t want to open that gaping void in her heart again.

She doesn’t read Reyes’ messages. She goes back to her new ones and starts at the beginning, the first one she received after switching her identity, the one from Sloane  _ fucking  _ Kelly.

It’s blank when she opens it with shaking fingers, just a little icon to indicate a picture attachment.

It takes her longer to work up the courage to open this one. She glares at it, hands shaking again, and finally tells it to download just as Liam is pouring coffee into two identical Initiative-issued mugs.

“Oh  _ god _ , oh no--” She’s out of her chair and running blindly in the direction of the bathroom almost before she’s fully identified Sloane’s photo. It’s a clear warning and answers one looming question she had from her time with the Outcasts.

The nausea that started with her morning panic and had only just started to disappear comes back full-force at the image of Cato’s head splashed with his own blood and detached from his body, resting on a spike in the marketplace with his tongue lolling free of his slack jaw. She finds the bathroom but only makes it to the sink before she’s losing the very little left in her stomach.

She continues to dry heave even after she empties her stomach, and when she finally finishes, she rests her elbows on the edges of the sink and covers her eyes with both hands. “SAM?” Her voice is hoarse, her throat scraped raw. 

“ _ Yes, Avery? _ ”

“Delete that last message from Sloane. The one I just read.” She pulls her hands away from her eyes and stares at them, bloodshot and shadowed, in the little bathroom mirror. “And then do  _ not  _ do anything to my omnitool again without my express permission.”

“ _ The message has been deleted, _ ” SAM says. “ _ I am sorry, Avery. _ ”

“It’s fine, SAM,” she mutters. She runs the water in the sink to clean it, then rinses her mouth out and spits into the swirling water. She drinks some straight out of the tap before washing her face, and when that water stays down, she drinks more before turning off the tap.

Liam is still in the kitchen when she returns, but the purple angara is there too. Avery hovers at the door, cheeks turning pink as she sees the concern clearly on both of their faces.

“You okay?” Liam is leaning against the counter drinking one of the mugs of coffee, but he cocks his head as he studies her. “Do you need to see Lexi?”

Avery shakes her head before she can find her voice. “I’m fine now,” she croaks. “Do you have, like… crackers or something? An energy bar?”

“Oh!” Liam puts his mug down and spins around to dig through one of the cupboards. She snags the extra coffee while he’s distracted, and then accepts the granola he finds for her with a little smile. “You sure I can’t get you anything else?”

She just shakes her head and sinks into the seat across from the angara.

Liam sits down too and spins his mug slowly between his hands. “Have you met our envoy from Aya? Jaal Ama Darav, meet Avery Ryder.”

Avery drums up another smile and offers her arm in the greeting Keema taught her. Jaal lights up and reciprocates the gesture before returning his attention to his little tube of nutrient paste. 

“Avery Ryder!” Jaal’s voice is too loud in the small space, booming across the table in his enthusiasm. Avery arches her brows at him, but he continues undaunted, “I hope you are well today. I am truly sorry for your loss.”

Oh. She slumps down in her chair a little and takes a bite of her granola so she doesn’t have to answer him right away. He takes that as an opportunity to continue speaking.

“I understand your pain. If you ever need someone to talk to, I am willing. Unless I am fighting alongside your brother, of course.”

Avery’s eyes snap up to meet his starry ones. “Your brother murder your boyfriend too?”

Liam winces, but Jaal barely reacts.

“No,” Jaal says carefully, “but he  _ did  _ marry the woman I loved.”

They stare at each other for a few heartbeats before Avery clicks her tongue. “Oh, that sucks.”

“Hmm,” Jaal grumbles. “It was many years ago, now. I was very young, and naively believed her to be my  _ taoshay,  _ my soulmate.” Avery’s eyes start to water a bit, but she wrinkles her nose and takes slow breaths to fight her tears. “You have lost your  _ taoshay _ ,” Jaal continues, “and you are grieving. It will take you time to feel whole again. I would like to help, if I can.”

Jaal’s current reaches Avery across the table, twining around her natural biotics in a way that reminds her keenly of how Keema comforted her, and she bursts into tears.

She lowers her head to the table and covers it with her arms. Her finger clutch at her hair in a desperate bid to hold her body together. There’s shuffling around her, a quiet chastisement from Liam at Jaal for making her cry again, and then Jaal and Liam are gently pulling her to her feet.

“Come on, we’re going to take you up to the tech lab,” Liam says, guiding her through the kitchen and toward a ladder against the wall. “You can rest up there with Jaal, unless you want to go back to Vetra’s room.”

She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand and starts to climb, arms feeling weak from hauling her body straight up in the air. Jaal starts on the other ladder while Liam waits at the base.

“Scott does not often visit the tech lab,” Jaal says, and Avery feels a wave of rage at his name. She pushes it away, but more tears escape before she can stop them. She didn’t get to finish her breakfast, but all she wants to do is  _ sleep.  _ “You will be able to rest there until we reach your Nexus.”

“Thanks, guys,” Avery murmurs. “You don’t have to do all this for me.”

She lets Jaal walk before her, and he guides her to one of the smaller rooms off of the room where she’d attacked Scott. The little room is full of bits and pieces of tech, piled on tables and filling crates, but a wide pile of cushions is tucked into the back of the room. Jaal gestures at it, and Avery sits down carefully at the edge.

Jaal settles on a nearby chair and picks up some little weapon pieces that Avery doesn’t recognize and doesn’t care to. “Sleep if you would like,” he says. “I will watch over you.”

Avery scrubs at her face again, drying her cheeks but leaving them red and raw. “Can you do that bioelectricity thing again?” she asks, and she’ll be wholly embarrassed at how needy she sounds when she doesn’t feel like her chest is collapsing.

He smiles at her. “Of course!” He moves closer, sitting on the other edge of the bed, mindful of a human’s need for personal space. She curls up on her side facing him and closes her eyes when she feels the gentle waves washing over her. “You can feel this?”

She makes a quiet hum of agreement. “It’s nice.”

“It is how we soothe our children,” Jaal informs her, and Avery muffles a laugh she doesn’t deserve with her hand. It quickly melts into tears once again, and she rolls onto her stomach to hide her face. “Cry now,” he says, “and then rest. We will be here when you wake again.”

She can’t do anything other than obey.

\---

True to Jaal’s word, Scott doesn’t visit the tech lab on the remainder of their trip. Avery doesn’t seek him out, her emotions vacillating between blinding rage against Scott and empty grief about Reyes, even as rumors circulate the ship that he had momentarily died on whatever his mission was.

Good. He should have stayed dead.

Though she wants nothing more than to stay in her bed until they reach the Nexus and Tann decides she’s not allowed back on the station, Avery allows herself to be occasionally entertained and moved from hiding spot to hiding spot.

Liam shows her his disgusting couch he rescued from the Nexus and the screen he set up for vids. Gil is bribed away from engineering to play a few hands of poker, though Avery’s apathy towards losing pretzels makes it difficult for him to read her tells. Peebee tries to coax Avery into visiting the escape pod, but the idea of being in such a small space makes Avery begin to tense up again, so the matter is dropped.

Vetra hovers constantly around Avery’s periphery, supervising her as though she’ll suddenly lose it and start attacking the other crew members, as though Scott’s actions are any of their faults. She does let Avery know Sid is particularly excited for Avery’s return and wants to have dinner with her as soon as they both have free time.

That makes Avery smile. Sid was always fun to talk to whenever they had a spare moment before everything went to shit, even if she’s a little younger than Avery.

Peebee finally brings Avery’s things to her, and she has time to shower and dress in fresh clothes just as Kallo, their salarian pilot, announces that they’ve arrived at the Nexus and are beginning docking procedures.

Scott appears when Kallo turns off the Tempest’s engines. He’s dressed in sweats and a hoodie, an uneasy expression on his face and a tightness in his jaw that Avery is all too familiar with. She glares at him and he snarls right back, their silent face-off lasting several long seconds before he finally speaks.

“I have to escort you to the Hyperion,” he says. He shoves his fisted hands into the pocket of his hoodie, hiding them from her. 

She blinks and hoists her duffle bag up onto her shoulder. “Why?”

The rest of the crew has mostly disappeared, eager to get as much out of their shore leave as they can before they have to return to fighting the kett. Only Cora remains, hovering in the bio lab, along with Gil and Kallo on their opposite ends of the ship. Avery is fully confident that they're all eavesdropping, waiting for another physical confrontation.

“I _may_ have promised Tann and Addison that I’d keep you confined to the Hyperion because of your role in the uprising.” Avery stands up straighter and opens her mouth to argue, but Scott’s expression hardens and he cuts her off. “It’s the only way they would let you back on at all. Should I have let Sloane kill you?”

Avery flinches away from her own initial reaction.  _ Yes  _ he should have left her behind. She doesn’t want to be here. If he’d left her behind, she’d have at least a  _ chance  _ in the badlands now that the water won’t kill her.

She doesn’t answer, instead pushing past Scott and shoving his shoulder as she moves by. Petty and childish, she knows, but it makes her feel better for half a second. Scott just takes a half-step back and grumbles under his breath before he moves to follow her.

He stays right beside her as she steps off of the Tempest and into the Nexus proper, waiting without comment as she freezes at the sight of the changes since the last time she was here. It’s full of people, blooming plants, all the lights lit up and the air properly cleaned and recycled.

It’s beautiful.

She can’t stop herself from craning her neck to look at everything as Scott leads her through the station. He grabs her elbow once to guide her around one of the corners, but she snaps her attention back to him and yanks her arm away from his grasping fingers.

He doesn’t say anything else to her on the tram either, though some of the other passengers stare blatantly at Avery. She can’t really blame him. Her shaggy hair, facial scars, duffle bag, and clothes full of holes rather make her stand out among the neat and tidy Initiative employees.

She doesn’t look at them either.

They go to the medbay first, following the flow of foot traffic through the waiting area and back toward the exam rooms and offices. Harry Carlyle smiles when he sees them approaching, and leaves his office to greet them both. Avery walks right on past him and shuts the door behind her.

She sinks into one of the seats, drops her bag on the floor, and waits.

Harry comes back less than a minute later. Scott doesn’t.

“It’s nice to see you again, Avery,” Harry says. “It’s been a while.” He settles in his chair and picks up one of the datapads scattered over the desk surface.

Avery shrugs. “Could be worse.” She stares at her gnawed-off fingernails and misses the tiny smile Harry sends her way.

“Overall, you’re in remarkable health for having lived on Kadara for so long. Lexi sent over the results of your scans on the Tempest -- we can treat your knee and your lungs, and you’ll be ready to join your brother in no time.”

Avery slumps a little more in her chair, stretching her legs out in front of her. It  _ would  _ be nice to be able to run without wheezing or having her knee swell up. But not at this cost.

“I don’t  _ want  _ to join the Pathfinder team,” Avery says, trying very hard not to sound like she’s pouting or pissed for no reason. Her posture doesn’t help her feel less like a teenager in trouble. “I didn’t want to leave Kadara either, but Scott kidnapped me.”

Harry’s hesitates before asking, “You… want to go back to Kadara?”

“No. Elaaden, maybe. Not Kadara.” She digs her nails into the palm of her hand to keep from crying again. She’s cried her weight in tears over the last couple of days, and she doesn’t want to awkwardly sob in front of one of her dad’s old friends.

Harry drums his fingers against the datapad, glancing down at whatever it contains before apparently making up his mind about something. “You know,” he says, very slowly with painful casualness, “you’re confined to the Hyperion until Scott gets approval to take you planet-side on missions.”

“I picked up on that,” Avery snaps.

Unbothered by her outburst, Harry continues, “And the easiest way to reach Elaaden, after we patch you up, of course, would be onboard the Tempest. If you disappeared with some of the exiles there, I don’t think Scott would be able to stop you.”

Their gazes meet for a long moment, and that traitorous bubble of hope rises in her chest again. If Harry is willing to help her, then…

“Okay, Harry,” she says, the fight going out of her and leaving her exhausted. “Patch me up.”

He grins. “Let’s get started.”


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a dream that when I woke up you were finally there  
> And I believed that all the hours turned to minutes, it's not fair  
> And when I turned to look at where you should've been I started drifting  
> I tried to stare into your eyes and realized that there was something missing...  
> It's just a dream, it's only fake  
> I just gotta leave  
> I gotta leave  
> “Drifting” by On An On

Keema still hasn’t answered her messages, despite Avery explaining what happened and not to try to contact her through her old address anymore. She hasn’t heard from Kian, either, or any of her other Collective contacts whose addresses she can remember.

With Reyes dead, they probably are too.

She lets Harry treat her as Scott collects his team and leaves the Nexus again without saying goodbye. She has surgery on her knee to repair the damage and spends a few days in a brace  _ much  _ nicer than the one she’d limped around in on Kadara. She sits through breathing treatments in an attempt to regain some lung function and accepts cream for her scars, though she leaves the little tub unopened except to encourage the long scars on either side of her knee.

She does find someone who brought a full set of cosmetology tools with them to Heleus, even if he’s working in sanitation now, and has him clean up her hair until it’s a sleek bob. She doesn't much like it, but it will serve her well enough until it finishes growing out, even if it’s the same ugly brown it always was. 

It takes Sid a while, but eventually she tracks down a bottle of the dark red dye Avery liked to use back in the Milky Way. She won’t say where she found it or how much it cost, calling it a late birthday present with a stubbornness that only manages to outlast Avery’s because the gesture of friendship finally makes Avery start to cry.

When she’s not crying or sleeping or sitting down to talk to the therapist Harry’s making her see, Avery works  _ hard.  _ As soon as she’s given the all-clear from Harry, she find the closest gym to her tiny apartment and basically moves in, walking to build up her stamina until she can run for miles, using weights to regain the muscles she had when she was in the Alliance, even spending some time in the training ring to refamiliarize herself with using biotics alongside weapons in the field.

She hates it. Every second she spends fighting the holographic kett or other people who want to stay sharp between missions leaves her nauseated and sweaty from nerves rather than the exertion.

She  _ hates  _ it, but she has to keep going. She needs to be strong enough to leave the Hyperion and then strong enough to escape from Scott at her first real opportunity.

He comes back to the station once and leaves a present for her with Kandros instead of giving it to her himself. It’s a Sidewinder pistol, sleek and brand new, built on the Tempest and modified by Jaal to do more damage and hold more ammunition per magazine than it does according to its specs.

She thanks Jaal for his work. She doesn’t thank Scott.

Avery looks up Reyes’ Initiative file when she can think about him without immediately crying and reads everything she can recover. It was mostly corrupted at some point during or after the rebellion -- hers was too, actually, but she gets a brand new one once she finally lets one of Addison’s people talk to her long enough to put one together.

His is much emptier than hers, and it doesn’t have anything she didn’t already know from their late nights together, but just seeing his name glowing gently on the terminal brings a rare little smile to her face even as it makes her heart ache.

She misses him. She wishes she didn’t, that she could just forget him and move on like Scott so obviously wants her to, that she didn’t wake up confused in the middle of the night trying to find him in her empty bed.

She didn’t get to say goodbye or tell him that she loves him. She didn’t get to hear him explain why or how he became the Charlatan. She didn’t get to tell him she loves that part of him too.

One little fact in his file gives her pause, though. _ Reyes Vidal, pilot,  _ it says,  _ assigned to shuttle N-503. Callsign Anubis. _

Anubis, the Egyptian god of mummification and ruler of the underworld, and, as her omnitool informs her, the one in charge of weighing a person’s actions in life against the truth and deciding if they were worthy of entering paradise. 

It gives her an idea, just a little one, not wholly formed, and she sends a message to Sid to get help.

_ Know anyone on this space station who knows how to tattoo a human? _

\---

The last step before Avery can join the Pathfinder team and win her chance to escape the Initiative for good is to get her SAM implant. All members of the Pathfinder team need one, she’s told, and she won’t be an exception no matter how big of a fuss she makes.

In the end, she gets the implant, and a brand new one for her biotics as well. She needs open space to practice how hard and far she can push herself, but she can already tell just from training sessions that she’ll be able to do so much more now...  If only she  _ enjoyed _ the feeling of manipulating mass effect fields to kill people.

She has to meet with Harry again soon to get her final medical clearance to leave the station. The next time Scott comes back from wherever he is and whatever he’s doing to catch the archon, she’ll have to get on the Tempest and go with him.

At least she’s been promised her own bed this time so she won’t have to shift between Vetra’s and Jaal’s when they’re not being used.

She has an appointment scheduled for the morning, but for now she’s taking the opportunity to snoop through Alec’s things that already take up much of the Pathfinder’s apartment. Scott is supposed to stay here, but SAM let her know that he prefers to sleep on the ship even when it’s docked at the Nexus.

She smiles when she sees her dad’s old coffee maker and rolls her eyes at the collection of guns -- she had a strict weight limit on the items she was allowed to bring, but apparently no one told the great Alec Ryder that he shouldn’t bring all his random shit with him to a new galaxy. Paper editions of Lewis and Clark’s journals? A giant fucking rock? Why the hell not.

No one tells Alec fucking Ryder what to do.

Avery is at least big enough to admit that she inherited that from him.

She leaves his terminal until last, ignoring the flashy setup that takes up one whole wall of his apartment until she has time to sink into his desk chair and roll out stiff shoulders.

“ _ Avery, many of your father’s logs are restricted to someone with Pathfinder authority. _ ” SAM’s voice doesn’t make her flinch the way it once did, but it still makes her grimace.

“Do I not have Pathfinder authority, SAM?” she asks, a little needling in her voice that SAM either won’t pick up on or won’t acknowledge. “I’m his second-favorite kid, after all.”

“ _ Alec disclosed no preference between you and Scott, _ ” SAM informs her. “ _ He only expressed disappointment that you did not want to join his team as he intended. You are, however, second on his list of possible Pathfinders, behind Scott but ahead of Cora Harper. _ ”

“Huh.” Avery taps idly at the keyboard and brings up what are clearly some of Alec’s private logs. She fiddles with them for a moment, guessing a couple of passcodes before stopping to formulate a plan.

“So… do I have Pathfinder authority, then, SAM?” 

She tries another passcode and is denied once more. She bites the inside of her lip as she considers other options, then finally guesses Ellen’s birthday.

The logs open.

“Looks like I do!” SAM doesn’t answer, and she doesn’t push. He either disapproves or his processing power has been taken up elsewhere, so she focuses on sorting through the information, easily dismissing the boring files and focusing on ones that hold her interest.

She reads all his correspondence with Liara T’Soni, learns about the benefactor who helped fund the Initiative, about how Jien and Alec were planning everything together for even longer than she and Scott had been aware of the group’s existence.

Hours pass as she reads file after file, watches saved vid files, wipes away tears when she sees images of her mom, healthy and whole, slowly changing over time until the pale and sickly Ellen Ryder she’d tended to back on earth.

She presses her knuckles against the ache in her chest and clears her throat. “Oh, Mom,” she mutters, staring up at the image of Ellen resting in her bed in the hospice. “You would have loved it here.”

She watches those memories a few more times before moving on. One last message from Dr. T’Soni is a goodbye -- the Reapers made it to the Milky Way. Avery’s stomach rolls at that, but she swallows back the nausea and counts by sevens until she starts to feel calm again. They’re in Andromeda. The Reapers can’t come here. 

At least she wasn’t still in London when they attacked. She hadn’t wanted to join in on the Initiative, after all. It was only her inability to live alone in a galaxy without what was left of her family that propelled her into Heleus.

One last file catches her attention, and she reads through it before getting ready to head back to her own little apartment. This file contains almost nothing but the name _Elizabeth Reilly_ and a code for the cryo bay.

Avery stares at that name for a  lot longer than she needs to. Elizabeth was Ellen’s middle name. Reilly was her maiden name.

Elizabeth.

Reilly.

Surely… surely not. Surely Alec wouldn’t have brought Ellen here without her permission? Against her wishes? Surely he wouldn’t have let Avery and Scott mourn her death? Surely he wouldn’t let Avery travel to Brazil to scatter her ashes?

Whose ashes had she scattered?

She’s up and running before she has time to consider it, making a beeline for the tram and ignoring everyone else who calls out to her on her way. Her vision is going white around the edges as anger and adrenaline war for which should be in control of her body right now, and her trembling fingers almost fumble the tram control.

She makes it to the cryo bay without anyone stopping her, despite SAM’s continued silence. She uses the code from Alec’s file to pull up Elizabeth Reilly’s stasis pod, and bounces on her toes until it comes down the line.

What she sees through the window makes her sink to her knees.

Her mother, alive but still unwell, trapped in cryo against her consent, sleeping there until she’s woken. Why did Alec do this? Was he so certain of the Initiative's future, so confident in his ability to find them a planet to call their own that he would bring Ellen in the hopes of curing her cancer?

Avery buries her face in her hands and grits her teeth and  _ longs  _ for an opportunity to do to Alec what she did to Scott. If anyone deserves a biotic punch to the sternum, it’s those two men, each destroying the lives of the Ryder women in the name of saving them.

She wants to scream. She wants to scream and yell and punch and  _ destroy. _

She can’t leave the Initiative now. She’ll never see her mother again if she does. Scott doesn’t even know she’s  _ here. _

She forces herself to her feet and keys in the command to return Ellen’s pod to its storage space. She stands there, watching it disappear back into the sea of other pods, and wipes at her wet cheeks with her knuckles.

She tucks her hands into her pockets and turns, walking with slow steps back down the long corridor. A familiar voice stops her short as the overhead lighting dims and red emergency lights begin to flash.

“ _ Avery, the Pathfinder needs your help. _ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I have a business trip next week that's over a Wednesday/Thursday. Chapter 20 will either be a little late or a little early, depending on how much writing I get done this weekend.
> 
> We're in the home stretch, friends. Thanks for sticking with me <3


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate how long this took me, you guys. Work has been SO busy (in addition to that trip, I've been given several new duties and it's been sucking up a lot of emotional energy). I'm just going to publish the next five chapters as I finish them, probably, since my goal is still to finish up by the week of my birthday. Please enjoy, and I hope this answers some very strongly-worded comments I received on earlier chapters ;)
> 
>  
> 
> How was I to know  
> I couldn’t live without your arms around me?  
> If you’d only come back now  
> I’d not let you down again  
> “How Could I Have Known” by Keaton Henson

He used up all of the medigel stashed in his shuttle, but blood is still steadily flowing from the three wounds his attempted coup earned him. At least the one Sloane left on his right hand seems to be mostly superficial, and the pain from that wound is drowned out as the pain from Scott’s contributions radiate across his whole body. Something about small mercies?

Sweat is dripping into his eyes and he’s going into shock. He knows he is, and he still flies as steadily as he can with only one good arm, the safe house tucked away as far away from the port as it can be while still being easily accessible for him.

Well. Easily accessible before he was  _ fucking shot. _

Avery tried to contact him just before the duel, at almost the worst possible moment. He hasn’t read any of her messages yet, but he did alert Keema about the results of the duel. She knows what to do in case of this particular outcome.

Not that he’d  _ expected  _ to flee injured from Draulir, exactly, but he had considered this as a possibility. Keema will start the process to lock down the rest of the Collective to keep it from even noticing his absence while she gets Avery out of the slums and to his safe house with him. The rest of the plan can be decided on later when he’s not at immediate risk of bleeding to death.

The shuttle landing is almost rough enough to be considered a crash. The shielding that kept his shuttle hidden from any watching Exiles shorts and gives up on impact, and Reyes is jerked painfully back by the flight harness now stained dark and wet.

He releases the straps with a groan hissed through clenched teeth, sliding free of the pilot’s chair onto his knees. He keeps his injured arm tucked against his chest and pushes himself back up with his left, grinding his teeth together as he forces himself to stand and stagger out of the shuttle.

There’s more medigel in the house, he just has to… get to it.

He leans hard against the front wall of the little structure as he waits for the door to open to his code, then stumbles through the opening and directly into the tiny living area. It’s barely big enough for one, and it’s definitely going to be tight when Avery joins him, but right now getting to the supplies in the tiny bathroom feels impossible.

He braces each step against the wall, leaving a trail of blood behind him, and pulls his medkit to the floor with him when he finally collapses. He uses his teeth to pull the lid off one of the tubes of medigel and spits when the astringent taste hits his tongue. He applies the gel to his wounds with shaking fingers, groans of pain escaping him as he touches tender flesh.

When he’s done, he drops the empty tube into his lap and leans back to rest his head against the wall.

He can rest now. Just… just for a moment.

\---

Sloane returns to her throne room full of victorious rage over the Collective, ready to mobilize against them and oust them once and for all. She ignored them for too long, and she will not allow them to exist for one more moment. 

She doesn’t acknowledge Keema’s existence, nor does she realize Keema has already spread the word for the Collective agents in the port and in the slums to move out to Draulir to remobilize. Sloane may be ready to fight, but the Collective is not.

When Keema is finally dismissed from Sloane’s headquarters, she goes to her own little apartment, checks to ensure she’s not followed, and then heads straight to Reyes’ safehouse per their plan. It took her longer to arrive than they had anticipated, and she hasn’t heard from him, but…

She finds the hiding place easily enough, but the sight of his shuttle dug into the dirt instead of carefully landed is… jarring. It unsettles her, lets a pit form in her stomach even though she’s been hoping for the best all day.

She lets herself into his house using the protocols he sent her that she has saved on her omnitool and her heart just… stops.

Fat drops of blood are splattered on the floor, dark red and menacing in a way that can only mean a human has been badly injured. Blood is smeared along the wall like someone used it for support as they walked. She can easily see five-fingered handprints in the smudges, though when she reaches out to touch them, her own fingers come back clean.

The blood is dry.

She walks faster, following the trail, until she finds Reyes sprawled out on his bathroom floor. His flight suit is ruined, holes from Scott’s weapon torn through the fabric and blood from the wounds staining everything it touches. 

Her legs fold under her as she kneels next to him, training from her short time in the Resistance guiding her as she begins applying first aid. His pulse is weak and fluttering under her touch, but his blood is still flowing and breath still works its way in and out of his lungs.

She pulls some of the Milky Way’s medigel from her own armor and holds the tube between her teeth as she rips the top half of Reyes’ suit open. Despite the blood caked on his skin, she can see the wounds that have been partially sealed by his own poor attempts at first aid, and she applies her own medication to him despite the fact that he’s mostly stopped bleeding.

She waits for the gel to set before heaving him up into her arms and carrying him to the double bed. She places him gingerly on the blanket and tugs off his boots for good measure, hoping a little physical comfort will make up for everything else that has happened today.

She would call a physician if she thought Reyes would be comfortable with anyone else knowing the location of his safe house. As it is, she can do nothing else but wait.

\---

By the time Reyes wakes, the sun has already set behind the Kadara mountains, settling the valley into darkness. He can hear someone moving around, and he blinks dry eyes up at the ceiling of his room, waiting for memory to come back to him. His whole body hurts, and it feels heavy, but he forces himself to sit up so he can see what’s going on in his space.

The movement nearly makes him faint again, but he closes his eyes and takes a few deep breaths to let his heart catch up with what his body is doing. He can still hear someone moving in the bathroom, and he can only hope-- “Avery?” His voice is a croak, his throat dry, but it makes the movement stop for a moment before it begins again.

Keema’s head appears around the corner, followed by the rest of her body. She has blood on her shirt --  _ his _ blood -- and a dirty rag in her hand. 

Avery isn’t here.

“You’re awake!” Keema smiles briefly before she frowns again and begins to twist the rag around in her fingers. “I have been worried. You lost too much blood.”

Reyes moves again to put his feet on the floor and uses his good arm to hold the injured one tight against his body. “Where is Avery?”

The rag is twisted tighter. Reyes watches as drops of water mixed with blood fall from the fabric and back onto the floor. It feels like his stomach is being twisted too.

“She left Kadara with the Pathfinder,” Keema says, voice quiet. “Her things are gone from her apartment.”

Reyes just stares at his friend, unspeaking, the pain radiating from his arm making his stomach turn and his head spin. Sweat already stands out on his skin, making him shiver when air blows across him from the climate control.

“What.” He grits the question out from between gritted teeth, voice low and dangerous.

Keema’s discomfort is clearly from Reyes’ injury and the news she’s delivering rather than from any threat in his voice.  “She’s gone, Reyes. Avery left.”

Reyes hauls himself to his feet, and Keema springs forward to catch him. She drops the bloody cloth to the floor and grabs for his good arm to help him stay upright, but he shakes off her touch.

“Have you heard from her?” Reyes’ voice is all business, sharp around the edges as he uses the facade of professionalism to hide the rising panic in his chest. The room wobbles around him, but he grits his teeth and braces his feet against the floor to help him stay upright as he struggles to activate his omnitool.

Keema hesitates, hands still outstretched like she’s going to grab Reyes against his will. “Not since I last heard from you,” she says, words carefully chosen. “She tried to contact me just before your… meeting with Sloane, but…” Her words trail off as Reyes finally manages to see the list of missed calls and messages from Avery. They all stop barely fifteen minutes after Scott shot him.

Each message is a variation on the same thing.  _ Call me back, Reyes,  _ she said.  _ It’s important,  _ she said,  _ I need to talk to you.  _ She left one voice message, but it’s the same thing, her words tinged with an edge of panic he’s never heard from her before.

She knew. She knew Scott was going to do something. She wanted to warn him. She  _ knew. _

Fingers trembling, Reyes tries to return her call. It’s rejected before it can connect. Her omnitool is no longer connected to the network. He pulls up her old contact information, from back when she was just Avery Ryder working for Sloane, and tries that address instead.

That call is rejected too.

It’s at times like this when he wishes he could simply throw his omnitool across the room or punch a nearby wall just to let the frustration out before it strangles him. He begins to tighten his right hand into a fist, but the movement sends fresh waves of pain through his body as it irritates his injuries.

His knees buckle, and he collapses back onto the bed, guided by Keema’s gentle hands until he’s stretched out on his back. The room stops spinning, but his fury remains burning in his chest.

Avery is gone. Her things are gone. She refuses his calls. She’s left Kadara.

She’s left  _ him. _

“Scott got to her,” Reyes announces, glaring up at the ceiling. Keema nods in his peripheral vision. “He already wanted her to go back to the Nexus with him, and she finally agreed.”

Keema’s nodding abruptly stops. “Reyes, I don’t think--”

He raises his voice slightly as he cuts her off. He doesn’t want to hear her platitudes right now or, worse, her to tell him  _ I told you so  _ over how he should have let the Ryder twins know his true identity long before now. “Was there a struggle? Have you heard that she was forced onto the Tempest against her will?”

Keema’s silence is answer enough for Reyes, but after a moment, she speaks anyway: “No. She seemed to be walking with two women of her own free will.”

Reyes’ throat constricts and it takes him several heartbeats to be able to breathe again. He always knew this would happen eventually. Even if she hadn’t figured it out before his unusual early-morning absence coincided with Scott’s meeting with Sloane and the Charlatan, she now knows for certain that he’s been lying to her for all these months.

She knows, and she’s chosen Scott like Scott chose Sloane. Two betrayals, neither less painful than the other.

He always knew she was too good for someone like him. She’ll be able to find someone she can trust on the Nexus; she’ll be able to settle down and have that little house and the family she’s always wanted. 

He pushes away images of  _ him  _ living with her in a house larger than this one, on a cliff overlooking one of Kadara’s valleys, a little garden on the south side and… maybe their own pair of brunette twins, always getting into mischief, just like their parents.

“Next steps,” is what he says aloud, firmly banishing those dreams before they can do more than make his voice shake in a way he can pass off as pain. “I need to contact whoever is left in the Collective and remobilize.”

“Your next step,” Keema says, voice very firm, “is to  _ heal.  _ You were shot three times and lost too much blood. You cannot even  _ stand  _ properly, so there will be no remobilizing. Not yet.” Reyes opens his mouth to object, but she refuses to let him speak. “Rest here. I have brought some supplies, and I will bring more as soon as I can. When you aren’t in danger of fainting every time you stand, I will help you with whatever you need my help with.” She does pause then, as though giving him time to agree with her. He doesn’t. “I believe you will be safer off-planet. Perhaps on Elaaden, with the rest of your exiles. You may find more support there.”

Keema is right, of course, but Reyes doesn’t want to acknowledge that right at this particular moment. Kadara is his  _ home.  _ It’s a fucked up, smelly, corrupt shithole, but it’s been his home since he finally decided to leave the Nexus and strike out on his own. He doesn’t want to abandon it. He wants to take it from Sloane and make it  _ better.  _

He shouldn’t have given Sloane so much time before the duel. If she hadn’t brought Scott along as backup, the sniper would have been able to take her out, and the Collective would have been able to take Kadara Port that very day.

Instead?

_ Fuck. _

“Thank you, Keema.”

She hums a little response. “You are welcome, Reyes.”

\---

Healing takes much, much longer than he wants it to. Even if he wasn’t extraordinarily impatient and ready to leave the planet, he’s so exhausted from the blood he lost that he sleeps most of the time. When he manages to wake, he smears medigel on his wounds and hopes that there’s no more serious damage done internally since he can’t exactly pop over to visit the doctor whenever he wants.

Keema’s occasional visits make things easier for him as she spends time to check on him and bring him food and other supplies that he needs to help him recover. The time between her visits stretches longer as she has to keep Sloane from getting suspicious, but she still regularly sends reports to Reyes through the old Charlatan dummy accounts.

He’s able to keep tabs on things well enough, though interference is common and makes communications somewhat unreliable. At least that same interference makes it even more difficult for Sloane to track him down than it was before.

As he recovers, he hears more things from his contacts on the Nexus. Avery is there, but she’s confined to the Hyperion in a form of house-arrest as punishment for her role in the Uprising. Scott had a very loud “discussion” with the brass about it, but they had eventually acquiesced to his demands. They can’t very well fire the only human Pathfinder just because they disagree with one or two of his decisions, now can they? At least not until he finally gets rid of the kett.

The idea of Scott suddenly finding himself without a job makes Reyes smile grimly. He deserves that and more.

Reyes also hears that, though the twins rarely seem to speak, Avery is planning on joining him on the Tempest on the Pathfinder team. If the Tempest finds a reason to return to Kadara, perhaps he’ll be able to reach her then. None of his messages have received a reply since she left, whether he sends them to Antonia Rossi’s omnitool or to Avery’s. She doesn’t want to speak to him, clearly, but perhaps in person… if he can get her away from Scott…

Whenever hope begins to rise in his chest, the realities of their situations rudely squash it. She’s on the Pathfinder’s team. He’s worse than an exile -- he’s an outcast. The chances of them seeing each other again are next to nothing, and she clearly wants nothing to do with him.

He needs to remember why he was hesitant to acknowledge their mutual attraction in the first place, well before they had their first date. He’s no good for her, and she finally figured that out.

She obviously has something of a preference for asari. Maybe she’s found comfort in the arms of that one that sometimes traveled with Scott around Kadara.

That idea makes his stomach sour. He tries not to think about it.

His shuttle needs minor repairs after its less than gentle landing, and he sets to work as soon as he can. He retains mobility in his arm and fingers, though he now has five new scars to show for the attempted coup -- one from Sloane on his hand, two from each of the two shots Scott landed on him. He tries to pretend they’re dashing and not signs of his utter failure.

When Keema finally brings the last of his belongings from his apartment -- including one of Avery’s datapads which contains a note asking for him to call her, a sentiment she obviously no longer feels -- he’s ready to leave the planet. Some time on Elaaden will give him the time and space he needs to plan his next steps.

Despite the fact that leaving Kadara was her idea, Keema frets as she helps him load the last of his supplies onto his shuttle. He’s going to miss her companionship while he’s gone, and he’s just about to offer her a hug and reassurance when both of their omnitools go off at the same time.

She steps away to answer her call as Reyes pulls up his message.

_ > To: R. Vidal _ _   
_ _ > From: SAM-Node, Hyperion _

_ > Mr. Vidal. Avery needs your help. _


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything is dark  
> It's more than you can take  
> But you catch a glimpse of sunlight  
> Shining, shining down on your face  
> “In My Veins” Andrew Belle

Avery starts to run as soon as SAM explains he’s been cut off from Scott and that the archon is coming for the Hyperion. She’s grateful for the hours spent on the treadmill since her surgery as she heads straight for the light armor stored in her little apartment.

Her body falls into habits she’d thought long forgotten, suiting up and double-checking the armor’s seals before she turns back to run toward the security station where her Sidewinder waits for her. Panic dances at the edge of her consciousness but doesn’t come any closer as she dodges around terrified civilians.

A wide-eyed Harry spots her as she moves back towards the medbay, and he stops her with a hand on her shoulder. He glances down at her armor and at the pistol strapped to her hip before meeting her worried gaze with a furrowed brow. 

“What the hell is happening?” he demands, and though Avery hesitates for a moment, SAM doesn’t answer. She’s on her own for now.

She hesitates, resting her hand on her gun, fingers drumming against the grip. “The medbay is secure. Stay here, Harry.”

Harry swallows hard and nods at her, finally releasing her to jog back to his medbay. She spares a moment of sympathy for him -- he purposefully stayed on the Hyperion to avoid this sort of danger, and now the danger has come for them both.

She turns to jog away, flinching when SAM’s voice comes back over their private channel. “The Archon isn’t stealing the Hyperion,” he informs her. “He wants you and me.”

She skids around a corner, face grim. “The Archon is here, SAM?”

“Your implant is the same as your brother’s,” SAM explains, voice eerily calm in the face of so much danger. “He will use us to control Meridian, and Scott will die.”

Doors slide open as Avery runs in front of them, and she turns through, intending to take a shortcut through the maze of access tunnels that the kett won’t be able to follow. “The Archon will kill him?”

“No,” SAM says, and Avery would swear on her life that his computerized voice is full of regret as he continues, “losing me will.”

Dread settles in her stomach and she draws her Sidewinder, fingers steady even though her heart is racing. She follows SAM’s directions until the pathway joins a larger room, and she’s face to face with Captain Dunn. They’ve only met a handful of times and have barely spoken, but Dunn immediately sends Avery a little relieved smile.

“Avery! Shoot them!” Dunn’s relieved expression only lasts until they hear a low explosion somewhere down the hall. Kett begin to pour into the room, and Avery exhales slowly as she lines up shots aimed at their exposed throats. Several fall under her careful aim, and more fall under Dunn’s. “Take the access route! We’ll barricade at the maintenance corridor.”

Avery doesn’t hesitate, turning to run down the hall Dunn indicates. It’s another shortcut, built by engineers hundreds of years ago who could have no idea what they would be used for practically as soon as the ship found its home in Andromeda.

With Dunn at her back and some members of the security team converging with them, she picks up the pace at SAM’s urging. “Please hurry, Avery,” he says, urgency inherent in his words.

She skids to a stop around a corner and ducks down behind an upturned table, using the metal as cover when she realizes kett have taken up positions at the other end. She peers over the top, then pops up to send three fast rounds at the closest kett. It falls with a spray of green blood, and she ducks back down just as the other kett fire on her.

Acid burns in her stomach, but she closes her eyes and takes one deep breath before popping back up. She uses her old training to send a Singularity into their midst, and the two closest kett are tugged into the mass effect field. Her moment of pride is short lived as Dunn yells for her attention.

“Get to the QEC!” she says, grunting as she, too, pops in and out of cover to take down new kett who run to support their companions. Avery pauses, hesitates, eyeing the number of kett still waiting at the other end of the hallway, and takes the time to Throw the kett closest to her back against another just taking aim. Dunn’s voice is harsh when she snaps, “God _ damnit,  _ get going!”

Avery growls through gritted teeth as she obeys, firing without aiming to cover herself as she runs through the rest of the fighters to get to the door she needs to follow. She follows the winding corridor to the comm override and keeps her pistol in her hand as the doors finally open.

“Manually send a reboot signal,” SAM says, and Avery’s eyes land on the override button as he speaks. “It will send a pulse to restart Scott’s implant.”

Avery pops the cover from the override with her free hand and stares at it. “Like a factory reset?” It’s always the first thing to do when something stops working. Turn it off and back on again. It isn’t something you would typically try when a life is involved, but…

She leans against the desk and puts her hand on the switch. 

“One pulse, Avery,” SAM urges. She stares down at her motionless fingers. “That’s all he needs.”

“And it probably alerts the Archon,” she says, heart sinking as she puts two and two together and comes up with the worst four she’s ever seen. “He’ll know where I am.”

A familiar rage starts to build in her. How  _ dare  _ Scott do this to her again? Force herself to put her life in jeopardy to save his, after everything he’s done? All she wanted to do was stay in the Milky Way, and then all she wanted to do was stay with Reyes. Scott couldn’t let her do any of that, and now he can’t even let her stay on the Hyperion in peace.

“I am sorry.” For what it’s worth, SAM  _ does _ sound sorry.

Avery pulls her hand away from the control and closes her eyes. “I am too, SAM.”

She thinks about how Reyes must have felt, in the end, literally shot in the back just when he should have been earning his greatest victory. She thinks about herself, forced off of the planet that was the closest thing to home she’d found in months, losing everything she loved at once.

And then she thinks about her mother, also forced to come to Heleus against her will, held unconscious and on the brink of death until medical science advances enough to save her. She thinks about her mother being woken only to discover her home destroyed, her husband dead, both her children lost in the war against the kett.

Avery opens her eyes and hits the switch.

\---

Scott’s whole body flinches as his heart restarts. His brain is  _ screaming  _ that he’s dying, like the sensation of falling off a cliff when he’s just falling asleep. It’s a moment of panic, and he sits up with a ragged gasp of air through burning throat, tears pricking at his eyes as the feeling overwhelms him.

Cora is at his side in an instant, hand on his back supporting him as he struggles to his feet. “I thought I’d lost you,” she says, quiet enough that only he can hear her.

He doesn’t have time to acknowledge her words or the weight of her hand on him. He struggles, every nerve in his body on fire as they go into overdrive, to walk over to the remnant console that controls the door blocking them from the Tempest.

Cora and Liam both call out to him as he places his hands on the console, just like he always does with SAM, and tries to copy the feeling that comes when SAM operates the monoliths. The interface shifts under his touch, but the pain that radiates up his arm and into his head makes him snatch his hand back like he accidentally touched a hot stove.

This door is the only thing holding them back. He’s the only one who can open it.

He tries again, then once more, and then the door is opening even as his stomach heaves. He bends down and coughs, then swallows hard, barely able to stop from getting sick on his own boots. Cora is at his side again in an instant, but he shakes off her comforting touch and sets off down the hall at a jog.

Outside of the room, the comms come back on and the worried tones of what sounds like everyone on the Tempest begin to filter through. The gravity well is a moment where he can relax as the field supports his weight entirely, letting him float down to the level where the Tempest can pick them up.

Cora tells Lexi to be ready for them, but Suvi says that the Archon has taken the Hyperion -- and Avery. His sister who he put on the Hyperion to protect is now in the grasp of the Archon himself, and it’s  _ all Scott’s fault. _

Lexi starts scolding him as soon as the whole team is back together, but he shakes her off. She scans him from afar, but with SAM still offline, her helpfulness is diminished. He ignores her and the argument that rages around him. The Archon has hostages, he has the Hyperion, he has the location to Meridian, he has a SAM. They need to fight, but haven’t they already lost?

There’s always a way.  _ There’s always a way. _

His eyes fall on a nearby remnant console, and he turns from it to look back at the remnant city.  _ There’s always a way. _

He walks toward the console, unheeded, and leans against it with both hands. He closes his eyes and lets muscle memory take over, following the patterns etched into his brain. When SAM helps him, it feels… not pleasant, but not unpleasant either. It’s almost a faint buzzing, a vibration in his skull that goes away as soon as they’ve finished manipulating the console.

Without SAM, though… it’s like fire in his veins, making his eyes water and his stomach clench. He grits his teeth together  _ hard  _ and pushes and pushes and pushes, and then finally he can feel the remnant give in, and he can let go and just lean against the console instead, trying to get back control.

“Ryder…” It’s Peebee’s voice in his ear, awe evident even though he can’t see her. “You did an impossible thing.”

The remnant are responding to him, and he finally opens his eyes to see his handiwork. A remnant fleet is before them, waiting for his command. He stares back at them, head spinning, as Cora comes to stand on his other side. 

“Can you keep that up?” she asks, tone gentle but practical. “Have them fight for us?”

He turns to look at her, at a loss for how to respond, and her gaze dips down to his mouth. His lips feel too warm, and when he reaches up to touch, his fingers come away covered in blood. He stares at the bright red liquid and his stomach heaves again, and this time he can’t stop himself. Cora jumps to the side, and Lexi is there in an instant instead, supporting him until he can stand upright again.

He turns back to his group, to the people who have been fighting by his side through some of the toughest situations he’s ever faced. He takes a deep breath to steady himself, then another deep breath to give himself time to consider his words. His head still aches, a sharp pain in the center of his forehead that he knows will turn into a full migraine at the smallest provocation. This is what his dad felt on Habitat 7? This is what SAM has been protecting him from all this time?

“We’re not throwing anyone’s lives away,” he says, first leveling a serious look at Drack before looking at everyone else in turn. “The remnant give us a chance worth taking. Right? Every one of us have people in Heleus we care for. We need them  _ with us. _ ” Lexi presses a tissue into his hand, and he uses it to wipe at his still-bleeding nose. “Not to throw at the Archon. We’ll use the remnant for that. We’re fighting for the lives we’ve built. That only matters if there’s someone left to live them. Let’s go.”

He steps away from Lexi and from Cora and heads up the ramp into the Tempest’s airlock. The archon has Avery. She needs his help.

\---

Avery crosses her arms over her chest and slouches in her chair next to Dunn, her whole body trembling with exhaustion and adrenaline as the archon paces in front of her. He’s giving a very villainous monologue about Meridian and about how he’s going to take SAM to control it. It feels oddly like being scolded by Alec or by her high school principal until she remembers that the Archon can just… kill her if he wants.

He needs SAM, though. That’s the only thing keeping her alive.

She summons up all the angst she felt as a teenager and all the anger that’s been simmering under her skin since Cora and Peebee showed up in her apartment on Kadara and snarls at the Archon. “You won’t get any help from me,” she informs him.

He snarls right back, then cocks his head a little like he’s listening to something. His eyes refocus on her. “Your Pathfinder is already here,” he says, and turns away toward the vid screens behind him. Avery glances over at Dunn, who stares back with wide eyes, but neither of them speak.

The Tempest appears in the window, dropping out of FTL just close enough to be seen. After a handful of seconds, the Tempest is surrounded by remnant ships that fall into formation, and Scott appears on the vid screen.

“You continue to defy your limitations,” the archon says. “Impressive.”

Scott’s eyes dance around until he sees what he’s looking for. Avery stares right back at him, eyes locked on the blood still smeared across his upper lip. “Are you okay, Avery?”

Her mouth drops open, but words take another second to follow. “He’s crazy!” she says, deciding to help instead of answering his question. Of course she’s not okay! “If we don’t submit, he’s going to use Meridian to kill everyone. That’s why he took me and SAM!”

The archon glances at her. “You say that as though I should feel guilty,” he says, then he turns back to Scott. “Exaltation is a gift. Those who can’t see that deserve to die.”

“Then it’s not much of a gift, is it, asshole?” Avery mutters. Dunn catches Avery’s eye and shakes her head once, trying to shush her. The Archon does not acknowledge her rebellion.

“You still command remnant, but that began with the SAM and the implant, and now… I have both. I no longer need you, Pathfinder, but since you insist on interfering, I’ll give you my  _ full  _ attention.” The archon issues a command to his generals, and Avery’s attention is drawn to the large windows where she can see smaller kett ships deploying after the Tempest.

Scott disappears from the vidscreen for several long seconds. Avery holds her breath and counts as the Archon paces back and forth.

The vidscreen turns back on, displaying Scott’s smirking face in more detail than Avery’s ever wanted to see it. “Don’t blame your people. This clusterfuck is all you. I’m not playing this game anymore.”

The archon’s lip curls. “You wish to force my hand? So be it.” He turns around to face Avery, and she grabs for the arms of her chair as he walks closer. Too close. “Unlike you and the Pathfinder, I don’t need an implant. I have  _ yours. _ You’ve made this much more difficult, Pathfinder, but not for me.”

The little device that the archon seems to control begins to whirr and bathes Avery in red light. The implants begin to burn at the back of her head, and she closes her eyes and grits her teeth against the searing pain.

_ Goddamnit, Scott. Everything he does makes everything worse. _

She digs her feet into the floor and tries to fight it, tries not to give in to whatever the archon is trying to get SAM to do. She thinks of Reyes again and wonders what happened to his body. Did the Collective give him a proper funeral? Did they bury him somewhere or burn his body? The pain increases and tears roll down her cheeks and drip from her chin. 

The Archon has her, and soon the Archon will have Meridian.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is at least 50% Reyes, don't worry.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Say it’s here where our pieces fall in place  
> Any rain softly kisses us on the face  
> “Call it Dreaming” Iron & Wine

Avery is bound at the wrists and dragged along behind the Archon by his soldiers, and no amount of kicking and screaming will convince them to let her go. She settles for going boneless, trying to make herself dead weight so that, if they’re going to take her somewhere, she at least won’t be exhausted when they arrive. It doesn’t seem to deter them, but it leaves her to focus all her energy on fighting what the Archon is trying to do in her mind.

She can tell SAM is trying to resist too, but there’s only so much he can do without hurting her even more than she’s already hurting. She just grits her teeth and waits for an opportunity to escape.

They abandon the Hyperion as they enter Meridian’s atmosphere and head to the planet’s core separately. Uncontested and with cooperative remnant, they aim for the heart of the planet through the winding corridors of the remnant city. The Archon keeps up his stream of chatter, letting Avery know exactly what he plans to do with both her and the core when he takes control of it.

She’s tied to a chair one of the kett saw fit to drag into this central room of Meridian’s core, that same little tool of the archon’s keeping her bathed in red, painful light. Her body is mostly unharmed, the pain radiating almost exclusively from her SAM implant if she isn’t crazy -- though, she has no assurance that’s the case, not anymore.

She closes her eyes and ignores the Archon’s voice, trying to focus on finding SAM within her head. If the Archon is using him, then…

Inside her mind, past the panic of being kidnapped and the radiating pain, she can feel her manufactured connection to the remnant. Is this what Scott feels when he’s activating the monoliths and resetting the vaults? This… awareness of more beyond his body?

SAM helps her more readily than he helps the Archon, and soon she thinks she can understand the layout of Meridian’s core. She can hear the sounds of fighting outside, on the planet’s surface, through the remnant observers floating nearby.

She knows when Scott and his team make it through the fighting on the surface and into the core because the closest remnant immediately identify him as an intruder, a threat to be extinguished.

_ No, _ she thinks, impressing her will on them through SAM.  _ Friend.  _

The remnant disengage. Scott points his N7 Valkyrie at the closest one, starting, glowing faintly with a shimmering blue light. When the remnant simply float in front of him, he lowers his weapon and cocks his head to the side.

_ Come this way,  _ she thinks, making the remnant turn to face the right direction.  _ Come kill this bastard. _

Scott does, following the trail she sets for him with gun held at the ready and his companions flanked behind him. Avery raises doors, opens defenses, guides the Pathfinder team through Meridian’s core until the pain becomes almost too much.

“Prepare to repeat the cortical stimulus,” the Archon says, voice as calm as it always is, and Avery can feel the pain in her skull building up again.

“Get out of my head!” She wants to rage at the Archon, to leap from her chair and rip his head from his body, but the alien’s torture is too much. She tries to hold onto her control of the remnant even as she screams, fingers digging into the arms of her chair until her fingernails break. Warm liquid covers her upper lip and flows from her ear down her neck, but she resists.

_ This is not how she’s going to die. _

The pain abates as the Archon’s attention is torn away. Avery opens her eyes and gazes down at her brother, who’s looking at her with his jaw slack and his eyes wide. He doesn’t look at the Archon, even when he starts to taunt him once more.

“Ah, it arrives. This attempt to rival me is no longer amusing, Pathfinder.” 

Avery rolls her eyes and then winces when it causes her headache to flare brighter for a moment. Of course the Archon is  _ annoyed  _ now. 

When she opens her eyes again, Scott has taken several large steps forward, away from his team, but he’s still so far away from her. He’s glaring, fingers wrapped around his pistol, as he spits, “I’ve matched you every step of the way. You’ve failed, Archon.  _ You’re  _ the pretender.”

“You learn by accident,” the Archon says, now plugged directly into Meridian’s control. Avery tries to stand as electricity crackles around him, but the closest kett shoves her back down. She settles with a little cry and wipes at her bloody face. “I am the genetic inheritor of a thousand species!”

_ What? The fuck? _

The Archon bends in on himself and the electricity surges around him. Avery can feel the pull on SAM as the Archon moves through her to access the power he needs, and she grits her teeth together against another scream that wants to tear its way out of her throat.

The Archon lifts from the ground, floating with the power of Meridian flowing through him. He spreads his arms wide, and his voice is smug when he says, “No more mercy. Kill them all.”

\---

Reyes’ ship blends in with the others leaving Kadara. He keeps his comm channel open so he can hear everything that’s happening with the Archon and the kett and the Hyperion. He’s pleased when he realizes Sloane has rallied the exiles to help Scott even as anger sparks bright in his chest at the idea of being near either of them again.

He pushes the anger away, cooling it down until it’s just simmering at the back of his mind, fueling the actions that are propelling him around the galaxy to help save Avery.

SAM’s ping was not very detailed, but it didn’t need to be. If Avery needs help -- and she obviously does, based on the chatter he can hear from the Hyperion -- he’ll be there. He would never intentionally let her down, despite what she must think.

When they finally drop out of FTL in the Saajor system, they’re joined by dozens and dozens of other ships, all ready to fight to defend their new home. Remnant ships fire on the kett while the assembled army of ships all duck between the fighting and head towards Meridian’s surface. 

Reyes fires at kett ships when he can -- the more ships that fall apart in the atmosphere, the fewer kett there will be on the ground to interfere with the Pathfinder team or with the crashing Hyperion -- but his ship isn’t designed for a frontal assault. He lands quickly, heading toward where he can see the bulk of the fighting is near a tall remnant structure.

This kind of fighting has never interested him. Chasing down enemies, dodging behind rubble to avoid being shot, and running tirelessly forward to claim all of the land that belongs to them. He hates it, the constant action, and would rather orchestrate takeovers from the shadows.

Of course, that doesn’t always work. And sometimes a full assault is all that _will_.

All of Heleus has come together to defend Meridian and help the Ryders. He can see exiles in their scavenged armor, turians, asari, angara, even krogan, all working together in the pursuit of one goal.

Sweat soaks through his flight suit as he kneels behind a rocky outcropping, head down to avoid the spray of gravel that the kett’s weapons dislodge. Sweat drips from his nose and from the curl of his hair that’s fallen in front of his eyes. He draws in great breaths, trying to calm his heart, but another blast behind him makes his heart seize.

He leans out from his hiding spot and fires three quick rounds at the nearest kett. It falls without a sound, but another one takes its place as Reyes ducks back into cover.

This is neverending. How many kett are out there? Are they all on Meridian at this exact moment?

He pops back out of cover, fires again, ducks back down to catch his breath. Again, and then again, and then he’s on his feet, running closer to the remnant structure that holds Avery, and then he’s behind a tree with his pistol held at the ready.

When he takes a deep breath and moves around the trunk to find and kill the closest kett, he freezes. 

The battle continues on around him, the sounds that were just so loud now sounding dim and dull. His feet start to carry him forward before he gives them permission, ice-cold rage dripping down his spine.

He only makes it halfway across the clearing before his target turns and sees him. Mismatched eyes lock onto his and then widen, teeth are bared in a snarl, and then Sloane’s shotgun is pointed right at his chest.

He skids to a stop, snarling right back at her, and they both freeze, weapons raised.

“Reyes Vidal,” she says, fingers tightening on the trigger. “I wasn’t expecting to see  _ you  _ here.”

“Surprise,” he says, arching his brows in an imitation of his expression from Draulir. Sloane just narrows her eyes at him, as unamused now as she was then. “Are you here so Scott can continue to kiss your ass?”

Sloane actually grins at that, a harsh chuckle escaping her before she lifts her chin. “If the kett take Meridian, they’ll come for Kadara eventually. Time to cut the head off the snake.”

“Hmm. Exactly what I was thinking.” He’s close enough to Sloane that he can have a bullet in her head before she can blink, but that means he’s  _ also  _ close enough that he has no chance of surviving a blast from her shotgun.

They stay still, glaring at each other, for an infinite moment before the reality of their surroundings makes itself known.

An Anointed kett appears from behind the same tree that had sheltered Reyes just moments before. It roars when it sees the two humans and raises its gun. Reyes spins and dodges just in time, following his instincts to tuck himself into a roll that takes him out of the kett’s line of fire. 

Sloane’s grunt of pain lets Reyes know she’s been hit, but the blast from her shotgun lets him know it isn’t taking her down. Reyes lifts up onto his knee and takes aim, firing repeatedly to bring down the kett’s shield.

It charges at Sloane, and Reyes keeps firing until his clip empties and his gun overheats. The kett's shield fizzles out just before it’s close enough to grab Sloane, and one more blast from her shotgun right in its face brings it down. It falls with a thud and a spray of blood, falling back toward Reyes.

Sloane tries to shoot it again, but she’s out of ammo too. In the moment she reaches for a new mag, Reyes is on her.

He lunges, tackling her to the soft grass that covers Meridian’s surface, and they land with twin grunts of pain. She struggles away, kicking and twisting to get out of his grip and find one of the other weapons she’ll have stashed on her person. Reyes rears back and aims a punch at her jaw, swinging with the same hand that she injured in the cave, but she blocks it with a harsh cry.

She flips them with what Reyes instantly recognizes as a close-combat move taught by the Alliance. She tries to punch him too, but he grabs her fist in his and surges up to slam the top of his head into her face.

Sloane howls in rage and pain as blood from her broken nose sprays across them both. Reyes realizes she’s reaching for a knife in her boot the second before her fingers wrap around the hilt, and he grabs it from her.

Their fingers knock together and the knife flies away, landing point-down in a patch of dirt next to the kett corpse. Sloane lunges for it, and he lunges for her, and they land in another tangle of limbs. Reyes pushes Sloane’s face into the ground as he pushes himself onto his feet, and he kicks the blade away from her reach as he grabs the kett’s weapon.

An entirely new galaxy and weapons still work the same.

He turns and aims at Sloane. She raises both her hands, palms facing him, and freezes still on one knee. 

She curls her upper lip in a snarl while blood drops off her chin. “Well. Look like you’ve won, Charlatan.”

Reyes doesn’t smile. He doesn’t rub in his victory or taunt her one last time.

Instead, he simply pulls the trigger and watches as Sloane falls dead onto Meridian’s soil.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been saying I'm going to do faster updates since I missed that week for my work trip... and I'm finally following through! I'm hoping this chapter and the next will clear up any lingering questions we all have, but feel free to let me know if there's anything else you want me to address!
> 
> I think chapter 24 will still come out Wednesday. It's one I've been looking forward to, so it shouldn't take too long to finish up.
> 
> I know forever don't exist  
> But after this life, I'll find you in the next  
> So when I say ‘forever,’ it's the goddamn truth  
> I'll keep finding, finding you  
> “Finding You” by Kesha

The battle rages around Avery, not touching her body but draining it all the same. She grits her teeth and digs her nails into her chair and tries not to lose consciousness as her body is continually racked with pain so intense that her eyes water and her stomach turns.

SAM is constantly on her side, helping her help Scott and the rest of the Pathfinder team. They work against the Archon and the remnant that serve him, fighting each other outside and inside Avery’s mind.

She can’t feel anything other than her nerves that are on fire. She doesn’t feel the blood that drips from her nose and soaks into the front of her armor. When the sounds of the fighting start to dim, she doesn’t feel the blood that drips from her ears, either.

She doesn’t notice when the Archon starts screaming until the pain lessens. He’s no longer actively using SAM, so instead of lava in her veins, the pain is a throbbing at the back of her skull. She opens her eyes in time to see the Archon fall, dead, to the floor at her feet.

Scott is by her side in an instant, blood splattered on his armor and across his upper lip too. She blinks at him, uncomprehending, as he uses a knife from his boot to cut her restraints and free her hands. She doesn’t move until he grabs her upper arms and starts to pull her upright, and then she plants both hands flat on his chest and shoves him backward.

He falls flat on his ass, the sound of his armor against the remnant metal a loud clang. Cora is at his side before he can stand, and she helps him up and then slips her hand around his waist when he wavers on his feet, exhaustion and anger warring in his body.

“Don’t  _ touch _ me,” Avery snaps, voice sounding loud in her own mind. She pushes herself to her feet by holding onto the chair and stays upright even though her whole body is trembling out of her control. “Don’t  _ fucking  _ touch me.”

“We all came to rescue you!” Scott’s anger is obvious, and it only pushes Avery’s higher. “I killed the Archon!”

She sees Jaal hovering behind Scott, large hands twisted together as he waits for the tension to resolve. He catches her eye and moves to answer her unspoken question without even looking at Scott. He helps her move where she wouldn’t let Scott even touch her, supporting most of her weight as she limps down the hill to the walkway that will lead them back up to the planet’s surface.

When they get close enough, Avery stops and glares right at Scott. “If you hadn’t abducted me to start with, the Archon wouldn’t have taken the Hyperion. This is  _ your fault. _ ”

Scott doesn’t have a response to that. They just stare at each other for several long seconds before Avery and Jaal start walking again. Scott and Cora follow closely behind.

It takes twenty minutes to walk back through the maze and all the way up to the surface.

No one says a word the entire time.

Just before the last set of doors, Jaal pauses to let Scott and Cora walk ahead. The doors slide open, and Cora releases Scott so he can walk out into the light of Meridian’s surface without support. Avery wipes at her face, trying to clean it of tears and blood, but then Cora is at her other side to help her too. Avery lets her, support from both sides helping her walk as her legs get more and more tired and her head starts to swim.

Everyone is standing there watching them emerge. Cheers go up when they see Scott, and the noise only gets louder when they see Avery behind him, though even that sounds muted to Avery’s ears. A little drone with a camera attached to it flies to get a better look at them, and Avery gazes directly into the lens for several seconds before offering it a little smile. It flies off, and Cora and Jaal drag her forward, closer to the crowd.

Cora stops first, her knees locking so abruptly that Avery slips free of her grip and almost falls. Jaal grabs at her waist, holding her steady, and they both turn to look at Cora. Her eyes are glued to something in the crowd, a high spot of color blooming on her cheeks. She looks… angry, her jaw locked and her hands curling into fists.

Jaal spots what’s stopped Cora in her tracks before Avery does, and his soft gasp draws Avery’s attention up to his face. He’s looking at the crowd too, but he smiles down at Avery when she looks up at him.

“Look,” he says, voice a comforting rumble and barely distinguishable from the ringing in her ears. “Your  _ taoshay _ .” He points, and she follows his finger until she sees…

Reyes.

Alive.

Standing in the crowd with his hair a mess and covered in blood, his eyes locked onto Avery’s.

His form is suddenly blurred, and she blinks hard to clear her vision. Two fat tears roll down her cheeks and she gasps, a rasping breath that makes her chest hurt and her throat ache. She reaches for him, trying to walk on her own, and Jaal helps her forward until Reyes gets the message and pushes past the people standing in front of him to meet her.

She wraps her fingers around the collar of his flight suit and collapses into his arms. Jaal gives her over as soon as Reyes’ arms are around her and claps Reyes on the back before leaving them alone.

Reyes supports her weight, one arm around her waist and the other around her back, his fingers buried in the hair at the back of her head. She clings to him, fingernails catching on his armor, huge sobs forcing their way out of her as her mind struggles to wrap itself around the fact that Reyes and  _ here  _ and  _ alive  _ and  _ holding her. _

If Jaal and Cora hadn’t reacted the way they had, she wouldn’t believe it at all.

Reyes is murmuring against her, but she can’t pick the words apart from each other. Still, his voice is a comforting familiarity, and it makes her cry all the harder.

Lexi appears at her side and tries to pry her off of Reyes, but Avery just clings to him all the tighter, the tone of her cries becoming desperate.

“She needs  _ medical attention _ !” Lexi is loud enough for Avery to hear, but she doesn’t care. She is never letting Reyes go.

“I’ll carry her.” Reyes’ solution is simple enough to satisfy both of them, and Avery doesn’t protest when he reaches down to lift her with one arm behind her knees and the other around her shoulders. She buries her face in the crook of her neck and hides from everyone else, willing herself to stay conscious even as her body fights against her. 

She’s out before they reach the Tempest.

\---

Consciousness comes back to her in pieces. Muffled sounds of a hospital reach her ears first, then the harsh smell of antiseptic, then the feeling of a soft mattress under her. She licks her lips and opens her eyes, blinking up at the ceiling until she can identify where she is in the low light of her private room.

She’s on the Hyperion again, in the medbay.

But.

Why?

She feels fine, mostly. Her head aches, mostly from the back near her implants. Was there an accident?

She wrinkles her nose and tries to focus on pulling her memories back from the last few hours, until...

Oh.

She tries to sit up, then, reaching for a button to call a nurse, but she sees Reyes again before she can. He’s sitting in a chair beside her bed, his arms on the mattress by her knees, his head pillowed on them. He’s facing her, his eyes closed, hair so mussed and dirty that it looks like it hasn’t been styled since his last shower. His lips are twisted in a little frown as he sleeps, a wrinkle between his eyebrows that she wants to soothe away.

He’s  _ here.  _ He’s  _ alive. _

Scott told her he was  _ dead! _

She reaches for him, running her fingers through the mess of hair across his forehead. His lips twitch up in a smile, but he doesn’t wake. She tries again, poking at him with shaking fingers until those beautiful brown eyes finally open and he sees her again.

He smiles, and she bursts into tears.

“Oh, no, shh,  _ cariña _ …” Reyes moves to sit on the edge of the bed, closer to her, and holds her face in his hands. She reaches up for him, and he leans into her until their foreheads are resting together. “I’m here. You’re safe.”

“You were  _ dead _ ,” she says, voice shaking through her tears. He tries to sit up, but she tightens her fingers in his hair. “He said you were  _ dead _ .”

Reyes  _ does  _ sit up then, pulling out of Avery’s grip long enough to stare at the closed door of her room. She sits up too, struggling to maintain her balance, and grabs his hands in hers.

“What happened? Tell me what happened!” Her voice is rising, bordering on a yell, and he cups the back of her head to hold her still as he kisses her forehead. She falls silent at the touch of his lips on her skin, waiting for his explanation.

He rests his forehead against hers again before speaking. “He did shoot me. Twice. I didn’t die.”

“Yeah.” Avery’s voice is still shaky. “I see that. You’re… okay? You’re okay?”

He kisses her forehead once more before sitting up again. “I’m okay.”

She nods at him and draws in a shaky breath, trying valiantly to dry her tears. “Why didn’t you let me know you were safe?”

Reyes narrows his eyes. “I did,  _ mi vida _ . You never replied. I thought… I assumed that Scott… told you the truth and you decided to leave Kadara with him.”

Avery lets out a harsh laugh at that. “What, you thought I left because he told me you’re the Charlatan?” Reyes nods at her, but she shakes her head. “I knew that before we got together, you asshole. I figured it out when Zia drugged you and you told me all about how you were keeping the slums together.”

He just stares at her, unmoving. He tries to think back to that time, to how she reacted the next morning… he knew he had said something that made her uneasy, but… to have spilled his secret like that, because of what Zia did? She could have sold him out to Sloane and taken back her position with the exiles.

She squeezes his fingers. “I figured you’d tell me when you were ready.”

“I wanted to,” he says, then clears his throat when his voice comes out rough. “After the Collective took over the port, I was going to tell you. I was going to keep you safe.”

She smiles at him, bright and wide even though her cheeks are still wet. He reaches up and wipes her tears away with his thumbs, and she turns her head to press a kiss to the center of his palm. 

Then, she frowns. “Wait, you sent me messages? To Antonia Rossi’s account, or to mine?”

“Both.” Reyes looks down at the omnitool sitting on the little table next to the bed, then passes it over when Avery asks. He watches as she puts it on and pulls up the interface, twisting to show him the list of sent messages.

There were several to him, to Keema, to Kian, but none had earned a reply.

“I thought she’d killed you all.” Avery bites her lip and closes the display, tears coming back to her eyes. She takes a slow breath to make them go away. “I thought… why didn’t you get any of them? What happened?”

Reyes shakes his head slowly. “Did Scott do something?”

Avery’s upper lip instantly curls. “Well, I know he had SAM change my identity on here. SAM? SAM, can you still hear me?”

His voice comes from her omnitool right away. “ _ Yes, Avery. I am here _ .”

Reyes arches his eyebrows and waits.

“Did Scott do something to my omnitool so I couldn’t contact Reyes?” She chews on the inside of her lip as she waits for his answer.

“ _ The Pathfinder requested that I block all communication between your omnitool and the residents of Kadara, including Mr. Vidal. _ ”

Reyes closes his eyes and heaves a sigh. Avery growls in disgust before she says, “Why did you do that? I specifically asked you not to do anything else to my omnitool without my permission.”

There’s a longer pause this time. “ _ He is the Pathfinder. _ ”

“Oh, of course. Can’t tell the  _ Pathfinder  _ what to do,” Avery snaps. Reyes squeezes her fingers again.

“ _ I am sorry, Avery, Mr. Vidal. I will remove the block. Old messages may be received. _ ”

“Thanks, SAM,” Avery says, voice soft. “If Scott asks you to do  _ anything  _ regarding me again, let me know first, okay? I don’t care that he’s the Pathfinder. He can’t control me like that.”

“ _ Of course, Avery. _ ”

“That mother _ fucker _ .” Avery is furious, cheeks red, and she glares at the door to her room like she’s ready to throw herself through it and tell Scott exactly what she thinks of his Pathfinding choices. “I’m gonna kill him.”

“I don’t think the Initiative will take kindly to that,” Reyes says, though he’s smirking at the fire in her voice.

She turns her glare to him. “I don’t give a fuck about the Initiative,” she snaps. “My  _ plan  _ was to join the team and wait until we got to Elaaden to abandon ship. If the Archon hadn’t taken the Hyperion, I’d probably be on Elaaden in just a couple of weeks. Why are you making that face?”

Reyes’ face has transformed from a smirk to barely held back joy, and her question only makes him crack that much more. He laughs and breaks into a wide smile. “I was going to Elaaden when SAM told me you needed help.”

Avery laughs too, though hers is more breathy. “Maybe I would have found you there, then.” Her smile falls and her eyes begin to fill with tears even as she fights them back. “I really missed you, Rey.”

He runs his fingers through her hair, tucking some of the red strands behind her ear. She leans into the touch, lower lip quivering. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

She shrugs one shoulder. “It wasn’t you.”

“I should have told you the truth. Keema told me to, but I just… I wanted to wait. I didn’t want to change how you thought of me.”

She laughs, but it’s a watery sound. “I don’t think you could if you tried.” Reyes looks unsure, but he doesn’t argue. “Can you hold me for a bit? My head still really hurts.”

“Of course.” Reyes’ answer is immediate, and he reaches down to untie his boots so he can kick them off. Feet free, he stretches out next to her and pulls her against his chest. She nuzzles into the hollow of his throat, neither of them caring that he’s still dirty from the battle.

All that matters is that he’s here, and he’s alive, and he still wants to be with her.

Everything else can be dealt with after she sleeps.

\---

Reyes stays awake long after Avery has drifted off, just enjoying the feeling of having her in his arms. He  _ never _ thought he’d be lucky enough to even see her again, much less have her clinging to him as she snores and mutters in her sleep.

Now that he knows at least some of the lies Scott fed her, he’s even more furious at the man. Not that he’s  _ planning  _ on doing anything to him, but if they happen to cross paths while he’s here on the Hyperion…

He messages Keema while Avery sleeps, carefully using his omnitool without sitting up. She needs to know about Sloane and to keep an eye out for Kaetus’ return to Kadara. If the Collective is going to finally take the port, the time is now, while their leader is newly dead and the rest of them are in chaos.

It won’t be too difficult of a transition. He has faith in his people, even if he hasn’t been able to see them.

And, if they take the port… that means he’ll be able to return home. He’ll be able to take Avery with him, to show her the safehouse and his plans to expand it. He squeezes her a little tighter at the thought, and she sighs against him.

He probably shouldn’t tell her this, exactly, but he’s sort of… happy that the Archon took the Hyperion. It worked out, didn’t it? Avery’s in his arms, everyone is safe, the kett are fleeing the system, and Meridian is theirs. If she has no lasting damage from the abuse her SAM implant took, this might even be better than her spending time on Elaaden alone.

A soft knock on the door interrupts his train of thought, and Harry pokes his head into the room. He frowns when he sees Reyes on the bed with Avery, but he doesn’t say anything right away. He steps further into the room and shuts the door behind him before speaking.

“Did she wake up?”

Reyes nods. “She was upset. She said her head hurts but didn’t mention anything else.”

Harry nods and brings up his omnitool. He taps on it a few times to activate the scanner and points it at Avery’s sleeping form. Reyes closes his eyes against the light, but he opens them again when Harry begins to speak.

“Her implants were damaged,” he says. “That’s what’s causing her headache. We may need to replace the one for her biotics and remove the SAM implant all-together, but I’d rather wait until she’s awake so I can discuss it with her.” Harry pauses, then adds, “Meanwhile, you need to let her rest. And you need some sleep too, I imagine.”

Reyes opens his mouth to argue, but Harry doesn’t let him. Reyes’ reputation holds no weight in the medbay.

“My apartment wasn’t damaged. You can use it to get yourself cleaned up, nap if you want, or you can come back here. I’ll take good care of her.”

The temptation of a shower is too much for Reyes to resist, not while Avery is dead to the world. He carefully rolls her onto her back before slipping out of her bed, and as she always had back in his apartment, doesn’t stir even when he grabs his shoes and stands.

Harry opens the door and steps outside with him. The medbay is louder out here, with more people with less-serious injuries being treated by the exhausted-looking medical team.

“Here’s my address and the door code.” Harry holds up his omnitool and sends the information over to Reyes with a little smile.

“Thank you,” Reyes says, genuinely touched by the trust the man is placing in him. “I appreciate it.”

“Hmm, well.” Harry deflects the thanks without directly addressing it, and claps Reyes on the back instead. “She really mourned you, kid. Don’t let her get hurt again.”

Reyes’ eyebrows lift, but he can’t exactly argue with that. Instead, he just nods and waits until Harry goes back to check on his other patients before leaning down to slip his boots back on.

He  _ really  _ needs that shower.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What the hell would I be, without you  
> Brave face talk so lightly, hide the truth  
> “Sick of Losing Soulmates” by Dodie Clark

Reyes takes full advantage of Harry’s apartment, showering and washing his flight suit before falling asleep face-down on the couch. His sleep is blessedly dreamless, though he wakes up not long after, ready to check on Avery again.

When he makes it back to the medbay, she’s sitting up and chatting with the angara who had helped her out of Meridian’s core. Avery notices him as soon as he pushes her door open, and she breaks off mid-sentence to offer Reyes a wide smile.

She looks better than she had when he left her, and he finds himself smiling back without thinking. She sits up more on the hospital bed and pulls her feet up to give him room to sit down too, since the angara is taking up the only chair meant for visitors. Reyes sits at the foot of her bed and turns his gaze to the alien in his lover’s room.

“Reyes, this is Jaal Ama Darav. He's the angaran envoy on the Tempest. Jaal, this is Reyes.”

Jaal and Reyes study each other for a moment, each sizing the other up, before Jaal finally smiles.

“It is nice to finally meet Avery’s  _ taoshay _ ,” he says, and Reyes furrows his brow when his translator skips over one of the words. He thought he’d gotten all those kinks worked out spending so much time with Keema, but apparently not. “I have been told that it is customary among humans to threaten the partner of a loved one?” He pauses, thinking, but Avery’s muffled giggles seem to spur him on. “I have been given command of my own command within the Resistance, so if you hurt Avery--”

Reyes holds his hands up, palms facing Jaal, and lets his expression show his feelings. “I have absolutely no intention of hurting her,” he says. “Ever.”

Jaal nods. “Hmm. Good.”

Avery, still giggling, pulls her hand away from her mouth. “Aww, thanks, Jaal,” she says. “I didn't know you were going back to the Resistance. Are you done on the Tempest, then?”

Jaal makes a low rumbling noise, and Reyes watches with rapt interest as some of Avery’s hairs begin to float with static electricity. Jaal’s bioelectricity must have caught her in its current.

“Evfra offered me my own command,” Jaal finally says, chuckling when Avery tries to smooth her flyaways down. “I… Scott and I did not see eye-to-eye on many of his choices as Pathfinder. I believe I will be of more use to the angara back with the Resistance, now that the Archon is dead.”

Silence falls over the three of them. Reyes looks to Avery at the mention of her brother; her lower lip is drawn between her teeth, her eyes dark, so he rests his hand on her foot beneath the blanket. She looks up at him with a soft smile but doesn't say anything about Scott.

“Well, I’ll miss you, Jaal. Maybe I can come visit you on Aya sometime.”

Jaal grins. “Yes! I would love to show you what an angaran city  _ should  _ be.” He looks back at Reyes and then stands, his rofjinn swaying gently with the movement. “I will leave you alone. I am happy you are recovering, Avery.”

Reyes nods at him and waits until the door is shut behind him before turning back to Avery. She's watching him with so much happiness written on her face that he’s momentarily at a loss for words.

What has he done to earn that much trust from her?

_ Nothing _ .

“How are you feeling,  _ mi reina?”  _ He speaks around the tightness in his chest, and he's rewarded with a bright smile.

“My head still hurts, but not as bad. It seems to come and go. Harry’s going to take the SAM implant out for me tomorrow, he said it's fried anyway, and he’ll check on my biotic implant too. That should help.”

She moves as she speaks, pushing her blanket out of the way and stretching her legs out over his lap. He squeezes her calf gently, unable to keep his hands off of her, and she seems pleased with his lack of self-control.

He traces the long scars on either side of her knee, the gentle pressure of his finger enough to make her laugh and twitch away.

“Your knee?”

“All better,” she says. “It was the first thing we did when I got to the Hyperion.”

Reyes nods and traces the scars again. They'll heal in time, and she won't be in constant pain. “I'm glad.” Something good came out of Scott’s actions, at least. If she doesn't have lasting damage from the abused SAM implant, this whole thing might be worth it just for the surgery she would never have received on Kadara.

Something in his thoughts must show on his face because she nudges him with her foot. “I'd rather have had you this whole time than a good knee.”

He looks up to meet her eyes. They've gone dark, a little, upset at the memory of his supposed death. “Well,” he says, slowly, drawing out the word until she quirks a brow at him. “At least now you can be on top for a change.”

She giggles and reaches for him, pulling him in by his hair until she can give him a deep, slow kiss. He's just starting to let his hand wander up her bare leg when she releases him and sits back with a smug smile.

“Get me off of this planet and I'll do  _ whatever  _ you want.”

“Whatever I want?” he echoes. “A dangerous promise.”

She laughs again and shakes her head. “I trust you, Rey. Give me another kiss.”

He leans in to obey, this time taking her hand in his. Their fingers entwine as their lips touch, and she gasps against him. Her other hand is shaking when she reaches up to cup his cheek.

She breaks the kiss and rests her forehead against his. “I missed you  _ so much.”  _ Her voice cracks, but when Reyes opens his eyes to check, her cheeks are dry. “I never thought I’d get to see you again.”

He chuckles, but it's a harsh noise. “I thought the same.” He sits up fully but doesn't let go of her hand. “Keema was supposed to bring you to the safe house if anything happened, but…”

“Cora showed up to say you were dead before Keema could get me.” Avery’s eyes start to well with tears again, but she dashes them away before they can fall. Reyes squeezes her fingers as she continues, “Why didn't you tell me what was happening? I could've waited somewhere safe.”

Reyes nods and sighs. “I should have. I was trying to protect you by keeping you out of it. I'm sorry.”

Avery just nods at him in acceptance of his apology. “Now what happens?”

Reyes hesitates for a moment, considering. “I still have a safe house on Kadara. It's big enough for two if you… want to come with me.”

“Kadara?” Avery echoes. “What about Sloane?”

“She’s dead.” His voice is flat, without any regret or joy evident in his tone. “During the battle.”

Avery stares at him for a second, expression unchanging. “Did  _ you _ kill her?”

The thought to lie appears in Reyes’ mind before he can stop it, but he ignores it. “Yes.”

Her lips twitch into a slight smile. “Will they be able to tell it was you?”

He shrugs and squeezes her fingers again. “If they investigate, which I doubt, they will find she was killed with a kett weapon. There is nothing to tie her to me.”

Avery’s smile grows and stays on her face. “Thank  _ fuck.  _ That's the second best news I've gotten today.”

“Really? What was the first best, then?”

Avery gives him a flat look, but it cracks after half a second and she gives in. “Walking out of the core to see you standing there. That was the best.”

“That happened yesterday,  _ cariña.” _

She wrinkles her nose at him, and he kisses it. She swats him away.

“Don't be an ass. You know what I mean.” He winks at her and she rolls her eyes. “So. You want me to go back to Kadara with you?”

“Unless you want to stay here.”

She wrinkles her nose again, this time in a very real grimace at the idea of staying on Meridian with her brother. “Literally the only reason to stay is that my mom is in stasis. I can get someone here to notify me if she's woken up.”

Reyes has heard very few things since waking up in Andromeda that have rendered him speechless, and even fewer things have left him gaping. This news, though, that the mother Avery buried and mourned is still alive? His mouth hangs open until he pulls himself back together. 

“What?”

Avery snorts like she knows exactly how this news sounds. “Oh, yeah. Scott’s even more like Alec than he thinks. Scott kidnapped me from Kadara, and Alec kidnapped Mom from London. He put her in stasis against her explicit permission, all under the hope that Andromeda will have a cure for her cancer.”

“What?” Reyes hates repeating himself, but it's the only real word he can think to say. “Why?”

Avery shrugs and pulls her hand out of Reyes’ grip so she can run all of her fingers through her hair. “Because he always had to be in control. Because he loved Mom too much to let her go. It's why he built SAM, you know? To save her.”

“Avery, I am so sorry.” Reyes moves his hands back to her legs, rubbing gentle circles into her skin while she shakes her head and refuses to look at him.

“We can’t do anything about it now.” She pauses and rubs her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Anyway. I would  _ love _ to go to Kadara with you. When can we leave?”

He can already tell she isn't over everything that’s happened since she left Kadara. She's still mad at Scott, still mad at their father, still upset about what Alec did to her mom. 

He doesn't push it. 

“As soon as Harry lets you go.”

She beams at him. “Perfect.”

\---

Avery isn’t allowed to leave the medbay for a week. The removal of her ruined implants is an emotional relief if not a physical one -- her first migraine assaulted her just after SAM’s removal and rendered her bed-bound for three days before she could tolerate light or any noise louder than a whisper.

Despite Harry’s assurances that there was no permanent damage beyond headaches that should dissipate over time, her fury at Scott intensifies during the times she’s able to sit upright and remember why she was in such pain to start with.

When she’s finally released, it’s only to move back into her apartment. Reyes is already there, comfortably at home and using Avery’s terminal to conduct what Charlatan business he still has and can do from a completely different system.

He welcomes her back into her own apartment with a warm dinner and a bottle of wine, and when they’ve finished eating, he takes his time undressing her, touching each new inch of skin exposed.

“What’s this, now?” He finishes pulling her shirt off and runs his fingertips over the tattoo Sid helped her get on her forearm. 

She blushes hot, uncertain now that he’s actually looking at something meant to memorialize him, but answers anyway. “Anubis.”

Reyes’ thumb traces over the inked lines, the stylized jackal head standing out clearly on her skin. When their eyes meet again, his are wide and dark.

“For me?”

She nods, and then his lips are on hers, kissing her with the kind of desperate intensity that makes her moan and her toes curl against the floor.

He lifts her, his hands on her ass and her arms around his shoulders, and carries her to their bed. Despite his earlier enthusiasm for her taking a turn on top, he pins her to the mattress with his hips between her thighs and their fingers entwined above her head. He kisses her until she can't breathe, until she’s wet and shaking in his grasp, until he finally pulls away to stare at her swollen lips and closed eyes.

“Avery.” His voice is soft, but pulls her out of her daze until she opens her eyes and looks back up at him. The green he so loves is nearly swallowed up in the black of her pupils, and he has to take a steadying breath before he can speak again. “I'm in love with you.”

She beams up at him, her fingers tightening on his, a delighted laugh spilling from her lips. “I love you, too.”

His answering smile is blinding, and he melts against her. Their kisses are long and slow, tongues dancing together, and when Reyes finally releases Avery’s hands, she slides them up under his shirt to rest on his heated skin.

When he pulls away from her lips to kiss down her neck, she arches her head back and tugs at the fabric trapped between them, suddenly desperate to feel his skin against hers once more. He sits up just long enough to pull it away, then he’s back at her throat with tongue and teeth, coaxing the gasps and moans from her that he’s missed so keenly.

Impatient and desperate to feel more of him against her, Avery runs her hands down his back and tucks them under the waistband of his pants. She squeezes his bare ass and he groans against her skin, grinding against her as she pulls him closer.

“Okay,” she gasps out, voice catching as his teeth sink into the fleshy part of her shoulder. “Pants off.”

When he doesn’t react fast enough for her, she drags her nails up over his cheeks and lower back, drawing another low groan from deep in his throat, but he sits up on his heels to undo his belt. Avery shimmies out of her pants too and tosses her bra onto her floor without checking to see where it lands.

She moves to kneel in front of Reyes, knees sinking into the mattress without pain, and runs her fingers over the two matching scars on his chest and arm. He's already looking at her when she glances up at his face, expression soft as she examines all that's left of his near-death experience.

“You could have died.” Her voice cracks, heavy with the emotions she carried since waking up alone in Reyes’ apartment that morning. 

He cups her face in his hands and pulls her close enough to kiss. This one is soft, full of love, and she leans into the touch. She pushes his pants the rest of the way down towards his knees and moves forward until their bodies are pressed together, skin to skin. She moans as the kiss deepens and his arousal presses against her stomach.

The feeling is still tight in her chest. She was given a miracle when Reyes showed up on Meridian, a second chance that she prayed for without truly believing it would happen.

She's not going to let it go now.

She pushes Reyes forward until he falls onto his back, and then crawls over him until she can kiss him once more. This time, she lets her mouth wander as his hands do, each becoming reacquainted with the other. 

He pulls her hips down to his until she’s grinding a slow rhythm against him. She shivers, lips stuttering against his throat, and presses her forehead against his chest to give herself a moment to calm the tears that are threatening to fall.

Reyes wraps his arms around her, keeping her tight against him, and murmurs quiet reassurances that are muffled in her hair. He rubs his hands over her back until she sits up, propping her hands on either side of his head so she can rest her forehead on his.

She doesn't speak as she starts to move her hips in a more deliberate grind, spreading her wetness over his cock. Reyes’ fingers tighten on her hips, squeezing almost to the point of pain, guiding her to a longer, slower movement that helps guide him into her.

“Oh god, Rey…” Avery is trembling against him, overwhelmed by the feeling of him filling her, the way he fits so perfectly she can't imagine being with anyone else. 

“ _ Mi reina… _ ” His moan sounds like a growl, and he uses his grip on her to pull her hips up and then push them back down, meeting her with a short thrust of his own. 

Avery follows the pace he set, lifting herself up and then lowering herself back down, fucking herself slowly as he meets her thrust for thrust. His hands wander constantly, sliding over her back to her shoulders and then back down to her ass, only to make a return trip to cup her breasts as she moves over him.

She pants for breath as she begins to move faster, propping herself up with just one hand so she can tangle the other in Reyes’ hair. He wraps both arms around her waist to hold her steady, planting both feet on the bed to give himself more leverage to thrust up into her.

Goosebumps break out over her skin and her cries grow louder as she grows closer to the brink. Tears prick at her eyes and she moves to bury her face in the crook of his neck, clutching him tighter. He slides one hand up her spine to the back of her head, holding her against him, and murmurs words to her in Spanish that she doesn’t understand.

One thing she does understand, something she’s felt for months but has been unable to articulate, and hearing it from Reyes’ lips pushes her over the edge into an orgasm that consumes her entirely.

_ “I love you.” _

She shudders and gasps, her body going rigid, her nails digging into Reyes’ skin. The tears she’s been holding back escape, sliding down her cheeks until they soak into the blanket covering the bed, and she muffles her cry by biting Reyes’ neck.

He releases her when her body goes slack, and she takes advantage of her new freedom by sitting up completely. Reyes tips his head back and groans as she sinks fully onto him, and she shivers again at the slide of his cock inside her already over-sensitive flesh. She stares down at him, lips parted and eyelashes glistening with her tears, and begins to move with renewed purpose.

She lifts herself up and slams back down, hard, again and again, holding his hands when he reaches up for her hips. 

“Rey,” she gasps. “Rey, come for me. I want to see you…”

He can’t say no to her, not now. He obeys, pulling her hips flush against his and groaning as he shudders and spills himself inside of her. She keeps her fingers tight around his as he shakes and gasps under her.

When he relaxes, she does too, stretching out over him and nuzzling into his neck. He rests one hand on her hip and draws the other up and down her back, fingertips tickling her skin enough to make her huff out a laugh and shake her shoulders to make him stop.

Avery brushes her lips across the pulse she can still see racing under his skin. “Question.”

“Hmm?” His fingers continue tracing along her spine, and he smiles at the way it makes her shiver.

“What does ‘reina’ mean?”

His answering chuckle comes from deep in his chest, and Avery slides off of him to curl against his side instead. She props herself up on one elbow to look at him, thighs pressed together against the slickness she can feel there, but Reyes keeps his eyes closed and his head tilted back.

She waits, quiet, playing with the sparse hairs on his chest until he finally decides to answer.

“Queen.” His mouth curls up at the corners as he speaks, but his eyes stay closed.

Avery purses her lips before she breaks out into a wide smile. “You’ve been calling me your queen this whole time?”

He finally turns and opens one eye so he can see her face. “It’s who you are.”

She blinks once before starting to giggle. “You are such,” he pauses to kiss him, and he smiles against her lips, “a fucking,” another kiss, a bigger smile, “sap.” A third kiss, then she props herself up on one arm and uses the other to cup his face. “And you love me.”

He tugs her down for another kiss. “I do. And you,” like her, he pauses for another kiss, “love me.”

Their next kiss lingers, then she pulls herself out of his grip so she can go clean up in her tiny bathroom. When she’s done, she comes back out to find Reyes in the exact same position where she left him, hands tucked behind his head. He doesn’t look up until she climbs back on the bed and leans over him on hands and knees.

“Question. If ‘reina’ means ‘queen,’ what is ‘king’?” He opens his eyes slowly, a smirk twisting his lips, and is met with Avery’s narrow stare.

The next word out of his mouth is exactly the one she suspected. “ _ Rey _ .”

“Oh my  _ god. _ ” She rolls her eyes but still starts to giggle, collapsing onto his chest. He catches her with a soft  _ oof  _ followed by laughter of his own, moving to hold her against him.

When she pulls herself back together, she sighs. “I’m ready to go home.”

He kisses the top of her head, and she utterly believes him when he says, “Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to publish on Thursday, but then Avery decided she absolutely had to bang her boyfriend ASAP, and it took longer to write a sex scene instead of what I'd planned. I can't leave these kids alone for five minutes. They're like bunnies.
> 
> On that note, I'm taking votes for what Reyes had in mind when she said she'd do whatever he wants.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you know that our love is written in the stars?  
> Do you think that it’s fate, the way that we are?  
> I’m so glad I found you.  
> I belong to you, you belong to me, that's always how it was meant to be  
> “October: Written in the Stars” by Tim Myers

Reyes leaves Avery in the care of Harry when he finally has to go back to Kadara to take care of Collective business, though he promises to return the very moment that Harry finally decides Avery is up to space flight.

She avoids most of the people she knows are still loyal to her brother. Jaal visits once more before he returns to Aya, wishing her well, and Suvi and Gil visit another time for tea and a game of poker. She doesn’t see Cora at all, thankfully, and Scott is nowhere to be seen.

Mostly, Avery stays in her room on the Hyperion until boredom drives her back to the medbay to annoy Harry into giving her something useful to do.

She’s not used to just sitting around, healing. Even when she was injured on Kadara, she only had a few days between her attack and beginning work for the Collective. And she at least feels physically fine -- most of the time anyway. Her knee doesn’t hurt, it almost never hurts to breathe unless she pushes herself too hard during training, and her headaches are becoming gradually less intense and slightly less frequent.

Harry still assures her that the headaches will probably go away as swelling and scarring from the Archon’s abuse of her SAM implant continues to heal. He’s hesitant to give her a definite answer, but she trusts him more than she trusts most people on the Hyperion.

Two weeks after Reyes returned to Kadara and two days after recovering from her latest migraine, Avery shows up in the medbay with a scowl. Harry takes one look at her and points her in the direction of one of the techs, who in turn hands Avery a stack of clean linen and sets her to making some of the recently-vacated beds. Avery, despite having never made a bed of her own free will, makes up each and every hospital bed to Alliance standards until she runs out of sheets and has to go ask for more.

When she walks back out into the main hall, she sees Harry talking to a woman she doesn’t recognize. She alters course mid-stride and heads straight over to see if this newcomer is someone interesting enough to distract her from the fact that she’s, once again, stuck on a planet where she doesn’t want to be.

Harry turns when he hears her approaching, smiling over his shoulder before turning more so she can see what he’s holding in his arms. A tiny bundle, all wrapped up in a blanket, nestled securely against his chest. The bundle moves, a little hand sticking straight up in the air for a moment before retracting. Avery’s mouth drops open, and she looks up from Harry to the woman and back.

Collecting herself, she closes the rest of the distance between them. “Something you need to tell me, Harry?” she asks, eyes now completely glued on the baby’s face.

Harry chuckles. “This is Dr. Kennedy,” he says, tilting his head at the woman standing next to him. “Little David here was born on Voeld, but they’re settling on Meridian. He just needs a little check-up.”

Avery looks up at Dr. Kennedy. “His name is David? He’s beautiful.” 

She can hear the smile in Dr. Kennedy’s voice when she says, “You can hold him if you can get Harry to give him up.”

Harry jumps slightly and clears his throat, glancing from Avery to Dr. Kennedy and back before passing the little sleeping bundle over. Avery cradles him in her arms, this tiny perfect human that will grow up without knowing about the Reapers or the Archon or any home other than Andromeda. His mouth works, but his eyes don’t open, some dream making him move in his sleep as Avery rocks him with gentle movements.

“I didn’t think the Initiative was working on repopulation yet.” Avery speaks without thinking and winces as soon as the words are out of her mouth, but Dr. Kennedy just laughs and meets Avery’s apologetic gaze with a smile.

“I didn’t exactly ask permission,” she says, mirth still evident in her voice. She arches an eyebrow and looks down at her baby, face softening as she adds, “We just couldn’t wait any longer.”

All three adults gaze down at the first human baby in Andromeda, and something tight coils in Avery’s chest. She blinks away the surprising tears and looks up at Harry, making her expression as hard as she can manage given the circumstances.

“When can I go back to Kadara? I’m tired of waiting.” Harry just sighs instead of answering, so Avery tries again: “Can you just check me again? It’s been almost a week.”

In Avery’s arms, David grunts and starts to squirm. A half-second later and he’s crying, high-pitched wails drawing the attention of everyone within hearing distance. Dr. Kennedy clucks her tongue and holds her arms out, and Avery passes the baby back to his mother.

“I’ll just change him, Harry. I’ll be a few minutes.” Dr. Kennedy winks at Avery and then steps away with the already-calming baby, leaving the two of them alone.

Harry sighs again, now without an excuse to put Avery off for another few days until her regularly scheduled appointment. Avery beams up at him when he pulls his omnitool’s scanner up and then closes her eyes against the bright orange light. It probably won’t trigger a headache, but better safe than sorry.

Harry’s next sigh is more frustrated. The orange light goes away and Avery opens her eyes to hear his diagnosis. “You’re improving, like I’ve been saying. I would feel better if you would wait a few more days to fly. What’s today -- Wednesday?” Avery nods and waits, silent, as Harry considers. “Come see me again on Monday. If you keep improving, you can go then.”

Avery’s whole face lights up in a smile, and she jumps up to wrap her arms around Harry’s neck in an impulsive hug. She releases him almost as soon as the hug begins, thanking him with her words instead, and turns to leave. She’s just about to select Reyes’ contact name on her omnitool to tell him the good news when she runs into Cora in the hallway outside the medbay.

Cora’s eyes are red, and so is the tip of her nose, and the look is so startling that Avery slides to a halt and forgets why she’s been avoiding Cora all this time.

“What’s wrong?”

Cora blinks at Avery and then barks out a sharp, unhappy laugh. “I guess this saves me some time. I was heading to your apartment, actually. I wanted to apologize for everything that happened.”

Avery’s eyebrows draw together, but she glances around to see if Scott is nearby. When she doesn’t see him, she reaches out for Cora’s elbow and pulls the woman behind her until she starts walking again. Avery leads them toward the nearby level of apartments and quietly says, “What do you mean?”

“I didn’t know about Reyes.” She sighs, then continues, “I knew… I knew Scott had a problem with Reyes, with  _ you  _ and Reyes, specifically, but I never imagined he would do… this. I never imagined he would lie to us all about Reyes’ death. I had no idea he used me to lie to you.”

Avery lets silence stretch between them until they’re finally at her apartment. She heads straight to the fridge and pulls out two of the leftover beers from Liam’s visit, holding out one to Cora before setting it on the counter, unopened. 

“Scott lied to you, too?” Avery opens her beer and leans against the fridge door to take a long sip.

Cora stays by the door and crosses her arms. “He lied to  _ all  _ of us. He supported Sloane over Reyes just because he didn’t like that you and Reyes were together. Did you know Sloane was charging Ditaeon protection fees?

Avery shakes her head. “I’m not surprised. That’s where she and I butted heads originally, over the protection fees she was charging people in the port.”

“Scott didn’t tell me that.” Cora’s looking at her strangely, with her eyebrows drawn together and her head tilted to the side.

Avery ignores her confusion, drinking half her beer in one go before speaking again. “Of course he didn’t. I got kicked out of Sloane’s organization for embezzling her money to pay back to her for people who couldn’t make their whole protection fee. She gave me my scars and put a bounty on my head. Reyes gave me a new identity and a new job with the Collective.”

Cora stares down at her feet for several long seconds, long enough for Avery to finish her beer and start on the one she’d tried to give to Cora. 

“I am so sorry,” Cora finally says, looking up to meet Avery’s gaze once more. “For everything.”

“You didn’t know,” Avery says. “Scott only shares the details that he thinks will keep people on his side. He’s always been like that. Alec was too.”

Cora scoffs. “I’m realizing that.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry too. For Scott, and for what I said about you on the Tempest. I was just trying to hurt him, and I shouldn’t have dragged you into it.”

Cora smiles, but it’s thin. “I know.” A pause, then, “Are you going back to Kadara soon?”

“Yeah. Monday, if Harry releases me.”

Cora nods at her and uncrosses her arms. She tucks them into the pockets of her pants instead and smiles at Avery. “I hope you’re happy, there, Avery. You deserve it, after everything.”

Avery feels herself blushing at the earnestness in Cora’s voice. “Yeah. You too, Cora.”

Cora leaves Avery alone in her apartment, then, and Avery stays standing in her kitchen until her omnitool starts to ping.

It’s Reyes calling from Kadara, probably to say goodnight. With the time difference between their planets, Kadara night is Meridian mid-afternoon -- just another reason Avery is anxious to join him in their home.

She sits on her couch before she answers his call, propping her arm up on the back cushions so she’ll be able to look at his face without her arm getting tired.

His low chuckle comes through the connection first. “There you are,” he says, and her lips instantly curl into a smile as his face appears on the omnitool’s interface. “And how is  _ mi reina  _ today?”

“I miss you,” she says, honestly, but the aching loneliness from before is missing. “I almost kidnapped a baby today.”

He tilts his head back and barks out a surprised laugh. “Where did you even find a baby?”

Grinning, she settles in to tell him about little David. She can get to the Cora stuff later.

\---

Monday morning sees Avery waiting in Harry’s office before he even walks in to start his day. To his credit, he doesn’t look surprised, just resigned as she gets up from where she was trying to open one of his locked desk drawers.

“I’m all packed up, and Reyes is ready to come get me,” she informs him, standing still under the orange light of his scanner. “I just need your seal of approval.”

Instead of answering her implied question, Harry asks, “How are the headaches?”

“Fine!” Avery’s defense of herself is too fast, and Harry just waits for her to open her eyes and look at him. She grimaces. “They’re not great, but I haven’t had another migraine. It just hurts off and on. I can mostly ignore it.”

Harry cracks a grin. “Good. If they get worse, you need to see the doctor in Ditaeon…” He looks through his omnitool before finishing his sentence: “Dr. Nakamoto.”

Avery’s smile is wide, her own omnitool up so she can message the go-ahead to Reyes. “Oh, I know him. I’m glad he was with the exiles, but I’m even more happy the Initiative let him back in. He’s a good egg.”

Harry’s laughter draws Avery’s attention back to him as he sits behind his desk. “A ‘good egg’?”

She winks. “You heard me. Thanks for everything, Harry. I’ll see you.”

His smile is soft as he says, “Stay safe.”

She’s already out the door. “You too!”

She has a little bit of time before Reyes lands on Meridian, and her plan for then is to just hop on his shuttle so they can take off immediately. He won’t even have to power it down. Until then, though, she needs to kill time, and she’s already packed and cleaned her entire apartment since waking up at the crack of dawn in giddy excitement, like when she and Scott were little and it was Christmas day.

She busies herself flitting from one person to another to say her goodbyes. Since most of the Initiative still avoids Kadara like the plague -- or like a sulfur-smelling pit of criminals -- and she never intends to set foot on Meridian again, she’s likely saying goodbye to most of them for good.

Sid promises to visit her on Kadara, and Avery makes her promise to bring Vetra with her for safety. Gil does  _ not _ promise to visit Kadara but invites Avery to Eos to meet his and Jill’s baby when it’s born in eight months or so. Suvi gives her an enthusiastic hug, as does Cora, much to Avery’s surprise. The few other people Avery came in regular contact with wish her luck without understanding her full story, and then Avery loops back to the medbay to say goodbye to her mother one more time.

Ellen Ryder looks just the same as the last time Avery saw her, and it brings tears to her eyes that she manages to blink away. Harry knows about her now, at least, and has promised that Avery will be the first to know if research into AEND starts to look promising.

When Avery makes it to the docking bay with her two bags full of belongings -- one full of possessions she’s collected since waking up in Andromeda, the other everything she brought with her from the Milky Way -- Scott is waiting for her.

“You were just going to leave without saying goodbye?” Scott sounds more sullen than angry, his hands deep in his pockets, and he stays several feet away from her when she freezes.

She narrows her eyes at him before casting her gaze around to see if she can see Reyes’ shuttle. “That was the plan. Yeah.” He hasn’t landed yet, and she shifts the strap of her duffle bag higher on her shoulder.

Scott sighs. “Reyes picking you up?”

Avery snaps her gaze back to Scott’s face. “Why? Planning to shoot him in the back again?”

Scott groans and rolls his eyes to stare up at the ceiling. “ _ He  _ was going to shoot  _ Sloane  _ in the back, Avery!”

“I’m not doing this with you again,” she snaps. “You can’t admit you made a mistake, I get it, but I don’t want to be involved with that bullshit.”

“I was trying to protect you -- why can’t you see that?” Scott takes a couple of steps closer, lowering his voice to avoid the curious gazes of other people wandering around the docking bay.

Avery doesn’t back up, but she does square her shoulders and narrow her eyes at him. “Why can’t  _ you  _ see that isn’t the kind of ‘protection’ I needed?” she hisses back. “Murder and kidnapping aren’t at the top of my list of ways family should protect each other! We’re not the mob!” When Scott’s expression doesn’t change, she tries again, taking a full step closer to him and getting right in his face. “How can you defend yourself? Don’t you feel the cognitive dissonance between what you  _ did  _ and what you’re  _ still saying?”  _

“I just did what I thought was  _ best _ .”

“Well, your best is shit.” Her omnitool pings and she glances at it. Reyes is about to land his shuttle, and the message includes his hangar number. “I’ll be out of your hair in five minutes and then you’ll never have to see me again. You can stay here, on this planet that you earned, with all these people who worship the ground you walk on, and you won’t have to worry about accidentally murdering anyone I love again. Make sure Cora doesn’t sneak up on you though; she doesn’t deserve anything you might do to her.”

Avery turns to leave, but Scott’s thin voice holds her back.

“Cora left me.”

She turns back around and lifts her eyebrows.

“Last week. She said she needed time to think about everything that happened, but… I know what that means.” Scott’s eyes are red, and Avery remembers how upset Cora looked at the beginning of their conversation. She must have been fighting with Scott before that; it must have been what inspired her apology in the first place. “If you go, I won’t have anyone else.”

Avery presses her lips together against the warring impulses to comfort her brother and to tell him he fucking deserves it and Cora can do better. She settles for something in the middle, a truth that will hurt as much as it might heal in the future.

“You’re not alone, asshole,” she mutters, gripping her suitcase tighter. Her omnitool pings again. Reyes must have landed. “Mom’s in cryo. The information’s in Alec’s computers, but SAM can help you find it.”

She really does leave then, ignoring Scott’s open mouth and suddenly teary eyes. She keeps her head down, heading straight to the number Reyes indicated, and fights her own tears to keep them from falling.

Reyes is standing by his ship’s airlock when she rounds the corner, and he jumps down to scoop her up into a tight hug as soon as she’s close enough. She laughs and drops her bags to hug him back, burying her face in the crook of his neck. His scent washes over her -- the fruity soap he uses, the layer of sweat that always builds up on Kadara, and a little oil from his ship’s engine -- and she squeezes him even tighter as the tears threaten to overwhelm her again.

When he finally releases her, it’s only to move his hands from her back to her hips, holding her against him as he kisses her deeply, thoroughly. Someone whistles at them, but they ignore the noise until they have to break apart to breathe.

Avery gazes up into those whiskey eyes she loves so much and smiles. “Take me home.”

He grins back and winks at her. “As you wish.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it you guys! I am SO SO overwhelmed with the response to this fic. I was so nervous about posting it for two reasons: 1) I'd never written anything for Mass Effect before, and I was afraid of getting details wrong, and 2) by the time I started working on this around Thanksgiving 2017, I felt like the excitement for MEA was gone and everyone had gone back to the original trilogy, which I hadn't even played (but I have now!)
> 
> You guys have been the most uplifting, supportive, wonderful readers a girl could ask for. I've made new friends and I'm so thankful to each and every one of you who took time to leave kudos, comment, send me sweet IMs, and lovely asks on tumblr to let me know that you enjoyed my little AU. Thank you SO MUCH. I love you all <3

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what I'm doing.
> 
> Come talk to me on my tumblr main blog [@ma-sulevin](http://ma-sulevin.tumblr.com/) or about MEA specifically [@kett-kat](http://kett-kat.tumblr.com/).


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